


Snakes Are Not Good Communicators Regardless Of Physical Shape

by SierraBravo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And Crowley turning into a snake to avoid conflict, Domestic, Fluff With Very Little Plot, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), mainly this is just them being domestic and emotionally semi incompetent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-05-14 18:23:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraBravo/pseuds/SierraBravo
Summary: Crowley was a snake. He was always a snake, at least spiritually, but at the moment, he was also one physically.





	1. Snakes In A Bookshop

Aziraphale looked up from the case of books he was sorting at the sound of the scream. Oh dear, he thought, screams should ideally not happen in his bookshop. It was a quiet place, filled with as many books and as few customers as possible. He frowned, and hurried out of his back room, just in time to see two middle aged women sprint out of the shop. Next to a pile of particularly expensive old books (although that description fit almost everything in his shop), lay a couple of takeaway coffee cups and a spreading pool of something revoltingly milky that smelled faintly of vanilla.

Crowley was a snake. He was always a snake, at least spiritually, but at the moment, he was also one physically. He lay coiled on top of a pile of books that did not look like they should technically be able to support the weight of a snake that large.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said admonishingly, "did you scare those two lovely humans?"

Crowley shrugged as much as was possible with no shoulders. He hissed, and pointed at a few of the books with his tail. One of them, a lovely first edition with slightly misprinted illustrations, had a large and seemingly coffee based stain in the middle of the spread it was opened to on the table.

"Ah," Aziraphale said, "quite right, then."

Crowley hissed again, and the tip of his tail seemed to draw some complicated sigil in the air (this was wholly unnecessary, but he liked to add a little flair to his demonic miracles), and the coffee vanished while the cups recycled themselves into a few sheets of toned notepaper, and placed themselves neatly next to the underused till. When Aziraphale looked at them later he would find that the bottom one had a drawing of a snake wearing sunglasses. 

"Thank you, dear," Aziraphale said, and Crowley hissed again.

Aziraphale ignored him. They had had this argument numerous times across the millennia, although more frequently in the last 12 or so. Everything had been more frequent in these last 12 years.

"Would you like some tea?"

Crowley hissed, head cocked, somehow managing sarcasm.

"Yes I can see that, but I thought you might want to change back for-"

More hissing.

"All right, all right. I won't bother you again. Do try not to scare more customers. One has an image to keep up, you know."

Crowley shook his head in a way Aziraphale had learned was intended mockingly, and he huffed. That was unnecessary. 

Aziraphale made an extra cup of tea just in case. You never knew with Crowley. Not that he ever liked tea, but the cups Aziraphale left for him did seem to have emptied when he checked after a while. 

Crowley had been a snake for three days now. It was something he sometimes did to sulk, or to avoid conversations. It was really quite inconvenient, Aziraphale thought. Not only did he scare customers, but Aziraphale had to go to that awfully depressing flat of his to water his plants, and that seriously cut into his search the web for more rare books time. Inconsiderate was what it was. Aziraphale had attempted to reassure Crowley that now that Heaven and Hell were watching a little less closely it would be safe for him to be a little bit nicer, but that had not gone over well. The demon seemed to have sort of issue with the concept.

Three days ago Aziraphale had suggested that they move in together, and Crowley had almost immediately decided that skin and limbs were for Other People. It wasn't even that they couldn't communicate. Aziraphale could understand Crowley's hissing quite clearly, but it was sort of difficult to have a conversation with a large snake, at least about important things. It was not as if the idea was new or all that shocking, in fact Crowley had stayed at the small flat Aziraphale had above the bookshop quite frequently in the last year since the world failed to end. He would always insist on laying sprawled impractically on Aziraphale's sofa, though, refusing any blankets or pillows.

–

Crowley hissed thoughtfully to himself. He was nearing the end of his capacity to sulk, not because he was feeling more reasonable about anything, but because he really missed espresso. He had tried miracling up a cup for himself, but snake taste buds were just not quite able to appreciate the lovely bitterness of it. 

The angel had asked him to move in, and Crowley was fairly certain he had not understood the magnitude of this request. Move _in_. _Move in_. With an _Angel_. It was unheard of, of course. It was unacceptable and also impossible, and an absurd and stupid idea. _Move in_. Hell's sake, Angel. Ridiculous.

Crowley had stayed in the bookshop in these last two days, but there was no point in sulking snakily if no one was there to see it, he reasoned. If he went home to his own flat he would have to sulk on his own, and besides, there were fewer people to hiss at there. Only his plants, and they did not react with sufficient terror to his hissing. And it was cold there. And, if he was completely and utterly honest with himself against all better judgement, it felt sort of empty. Sure, Aziraphale was fussy and had terrible taste in just about everything except wine (and possibly demons), and went on about his books for hours and was generally quite insufferable, but Crowley had gotten used to it. When he was home he found himself filling the silence not only with music loud enough to generate at least two neighbour complaints per night, but also with imagined conversations with the angel. It was awful. _Feelings_ weren't demonic. 

Crowley would admit that he had, through the last few millennia, flirted with Aziraphale. But that was what demons did. It was tempting Aziraphale. It was making him question the Word of God, it was making him flustered. It was no fun when Aziraphale just smiled fondly. It made Crowley's insides go all funny. Aziraphale had flirted back one day, and Crowley had hid for a week. He didn't know how to handle this. He didn't want to.

"You go too fast for me," the angel had told him over half a century ago, and Crowley thought he might have figured out what Aziraphale meant now. 

Crowley miracled himself upstairs. It was hard to climb a staircase with any dignity without legs. He thought he might sleep for another century here, and hope that Aziraphale had forgotten what they had failed to talk about.

\--

Aziraphale found Crowley later that night, coiled up on top of his bed. The black and red snake looked out of place there, among the slightly frilly and old fashioned bedspread and fluffy pillows, but it did make the angel smile fondly. Crowley would come around, he thought, he just needed time. He got into the bed, daintily positioning himself in an awkward curve so as not to disturb Crowley, and just as he fell asleep he thought he saw one yellow eye open a crack. Yes, he thought. Crowley would come around.


	2. Snakes Do, However, Make Serviceable Neck Warming Devices When They Feel Like It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accidentally wrote another chapter to include the stupid snake scarf idea oops

When Crowley woke up, he found that he was coiled on top of Aziraphale's sleeping form. It had not, it seemed, been a century, because the book on the night stand was still the same, the stupid bookmark with one of those fluffy thread bits at the top poking out neatly. This was disappointing. What was distressing, however, deeply so, was that laying on top of Aziraphale's gently rising and falling duvet covered chest felt, well, _nice_. 

A few microseconds later, Crowley was in his own flat, in his more bipedal shape. He almost got a little dizzy, what with the floor being so far away, but shook it off, sauntering inelegantly into the kitchen. There was a winding stair leading down to a wine cellar in the middle of the kitchen floor. It did, due to some very elegant magic, both absolutely exist on the level below Crowley's flat and, also, did not exist in the middle of the flat below his. On one of the kitchen counters there was a very expensive and shiny espresso machine, the kind that both cost absurdly much, and used capsules that were both absolutely terrible for the environment, as well as being very expensive in their own right. Crowley was quite proud of the concept. He grabbed a very small cup, placed it in front of the machine, and pressed the button. The machine did not contain either water or coffee capsules, and never had, but nevertheless filled the cup. It had seen what happened to the plants, and knew better than to disobey.

Espresso, and coffee in general, and, in even more general, stimulants, was quite a good invention, Crowley thought. It wasn't his, and he was not quite sure whose it was, but he was quietly grateful to them. There was something delightfully twisted about plants developing poisons specifically to avoid being eaten, and humans immediately deciding to try to fuck themselves up on said poisons. He had never really considered himself to be a venomous snake, although he could be, when he felt like it. He certainly had been when Cleopatra had asked him to help her kill herself. But no, mostly he thought of himself as a snake with rather more and larger fangs than most snakes had. And sometimes a snake wearing sunglasses, although he had yet to invent a way for that to look as menacing and cool as he wanted it to.

Crowley went back to the living room to glare at his plants. He took his sunglasses off for a fuller effect, and if anyone with eyes or an occipital lobe had been watching, they would have noticed the whites of his eyes had been completely obscured by the yellow. The plants, however, knew nothing more than an increasing aura of terror. 

"Are you all," Crowley began with a quiet menace, " _behaving_?"

The leaves on the plants seemed to quiver slightly, despite the lack of open windows. He glared at each plant in turn, giving them the most demonic stare he could manage until he saw, almost completely hidden behind one of the pots, a cheerful yellow watering can. Its spout was shaped like a cartoon flower. He glared at it, too, but it failed to slink back into non-existence. Must be Aziraphale, he thought, and could suddenly no longer decide quite how he felt about its presence. It clashed horribly with the stark concrete aesthetic of the flat. But it also meant that Aziraphale had been here and taken care of his plants, however incorrectly and ineffectively he had probably done so. Crowley bet the stupid angel had even been _nice_ to them. Satan, maybe he'd even paid them compliments. It did not bear thinking about.

" _Listen_ , if that man gave you the impression that there is any room, any room at all, for _slacking_ in this house, if he made you feel _good_ about yourselves... Well."

He grabbed a pair of shears that looked quite horrific, particularly if one knew that he had acquired them from an incredibly efficient inquisitor in 1327, who had invented some new and inspiring ways of figuring out whether a woman was a witch, which had involved a lot of chopping off of fingers and tongues regardless, frankly, of what the woman or witch confessed or didn't confess. Crowley often polished it in front of the plants, just to remind them of the consequences of failure. The metal glinted menacingly, and somehow always reflected just a bit of crimson, regardless of the lighting around it.

One of the plants grew five centimetres, and sprouted a flower, despite not being the kind of plant that grew flowers. It was a red and black flower with quite spiky petals that looked like they might be poisonous. Crowley squinted at it.

"That'll do," he said, "for now."

\--

In the bookshop, Aziraphale made a noise in his sleep. The sensation of several kilos of snake suddenly disappearing and letting his lungs expand sufficiently was enough to rouse him from what had been a lovely dream, in which he and some vague dark figure next to him had attended a beautiful concert in Verona in the 1800s and had some rather exquisite gelato.

"Bweh," he said, to no one in particular.

Crowley had slept on Aziraphale's bed for two days, which had been quite nice, he had thought. Not to think badly of the demon, although he supposed he was meant to, but Crowley was, when it came down to it, a lot more agreeable when he was asleep. Or at least less prone to insult Aziraphale's perfectly short and delightfully interesting monologues about whatever incredibly interesting old book he had just gotten hold of. It was also, Aziraphale, quite nice to not sleep alone. Perhaps, he thought, he would one day get to try sleeping not alone with a more human shaped Crowley. Or even a fallen angel shaped one, although the wings were rather inconvenient when laying down. 

When he made himself some tea, Aziraphale, without thinking about it, made two cups, and, upon realising this, spent two full minutes staring, rather mournfully, at the cups as the tea steeped. If it had gotten bad enough that Crowley had just left, then perhaps he had gone too far or too fast. He had thought, well, Crowley had always been the one who wanted them to meet, to cooperate. And perhaps to him it had been more about corrupting Aziraphale. Well, it hadn't, Aziraphale knew that, but perhaps that aspect had been what let Crowley be so... So carefree about it. Perhaps when the idea that Hell would reward him for upsetting Heaven's plans in the form of Aziraphale was no longer on the table, then he suddenly had to face the fact that what mattered now was just what the two of them wanted. And, as Aziraphale had known all along, that was, well, terrifying, really.

Aziraphale's tea stayed at the ideal drinking temperature for as long as it took him to remember to drink it, because he smiled at it, and the tea felt that it ought to reward that kind of behaviour. This was handy, because when he heard the rattling of the of the locked door he realised that the shop had been supposed to open fifteen minutes earlier, and he had been thinking about the demon for the last hour. 

He huffed, picked up his cup, and went to open the door, all the while glaring disapprovingly at the customer standing outside. As anyone who works in any form of retail know, customers were Hell's invention. They were all frightfully inconsiderate of Aziraphale's precious time (after all, who knew when Heaven and Hell might decide to try the whole Armageddon thing again), and some of them even tried to buy his books. 

"Yes?" he said, rather tartly.

"Sign says you opened 15 minutes ago," the customer helpfully informed the angel, although their face looked like they were about to get quite smug.

"Actually I think if you look closer, you will find that it does not," Aziraphale replied with a poorly faked smile, and pointed to the sign which now announced that the shop in fact was meant to open at 9:17 on Tuesdays.

"I- What? I could've sworn-" the customer said, as Aziraphale closed the door in his face to spend the remaining minute finishing his tea.

\--

Crowley brooded. Or he tried to brood. He had attempted to use his phone to play some good, sombre brooding music, but it had, by virtue of spending quite some time in Crowley's jacket pocket while he was driving, deleted everything except Queen's Greatest Hits, and You're My Best Friend was not quite the moody piece he was looking for. 

He did not want to go back to the bookshop, but the problem was that he also really badly wanted to go back to the bookshop. The air in his flat had a ringing quality, even with the music, and all the excellent beverages in the world could not make him feel better. The desk in front of him was filled with attempts. The message app in his phone was filled with drafts of texts to Aziraphale. The angel, of course, did not own a mobile phone, but his old rotary one helpfully read the messages out loud to him. When Crowley had realised this, the messages had begun to include far more emojis. 

As the song ended, and Freddie Mercury began to plead with Crowley not to stop him now, the demon wondered if he could sneak back into the bookshop without the angel ever noticing he had gone. It had only been half a day. A snake could conceivably hide between stacks of books for half a day, he thought, perfectly reasonable thing for a snake to do. Only they both knew that he was gone. It was the sort of thing they could sense, by now. 

Feelings, Crowley thought, should have been invented by Hell. He was fairly certain that they were Heaven's idea, as he seemed to remember having a few before he Fell, but they certainly caused enough misery to have some merit. Except now they were causing _him_ misery, which was less ideal. He would have to revisit the idea of being asleep for a century or two. 

\--

At around 17:47, which was when Aziraphale had decided that the shop closed, much to the annoyance of the lady who had been attempting to buy a set of Oscar Wilde first editions which he had apparently not priced absurdly high enough, Crowley appeared in the bookshop. Aziraphale's face lit up, and Crowley scowled at him.

"Don't," he said, almost pleadingly, mostly with annoyance.

"Oh! It is lovely to see you again," Aziraphale said, and it was. 

Crowley was mostly human shaped again, and Aziraphale realised he had quite missed that face, as much as the demon made a nice snake. It looked, currently, to be a quite uncomfortable face.

"Angel, listen," Crowley began, "I've been thinking."

Aziraphale waited patiently for Crowley to continue, but he didn't. He just swayed gently.

"Yes?" he encouraged.

"It's been awful. Hate thinking. Hate- Hate everything."

Ah. It seemed like the demon might be confusing thinking with drinking. They were, after all, quite similar words. Although Crowley was quite capable of sobering up before showing up at the bookshop, he appeared to have chosen not to. Which might mean that he was ready to talk about this. Or that he intended to get Aziraphale also drinking, so that they might have this conversation with neither of them in their right minds, and Aziraphale was trying to get better at not doing that. Not these kinds of conversations, anyway.

"Would you like a cup of tea, Crowley?"

"No," Crowley said, sinking sideways into a nearby arm chair, letting one leg hang over the side and his head hang down on the other dramatically as if he was a poet dying in a miserable Scottish castle in 1876. The only thing missing was his hair being longer. Actually, Aziraphale sometimes missed that too.

"D'you have coffee?"

"You know I don't. I could get you some from the café next door, if you'd like?"

Crowley did look like he might need some more time to collect his thoughts. 

By the time Aziraphale got back, Crowley was a snake again, and also asleep, draped across the arms and top of the chair in a way that left most of the sitting bit open, which Aziraphale took as an invitation. The coffee, which had significantly improved in taste and quality on its short journey from the café, would of course remain at perfect drinking temperature and freshness until Crowley felt like drinking it. He put it on a nearby book pile (they were third editions, it was _fine_ ), as he picked up a nearby novel. It was one of the ones he hadn't gotten to yet, which was good, because he felt the snake began to slide slowly down onto him, until Crowley was like a loosely draped but incredibly heavy scarf. It did not seem like he was moving from the chair any time soon. Crowley could be rather affectionate, when nobody, including Crowley, was looking. Aziraphale watched as Crowley coiled his body around his head once more, so that Crowley's head was resting on Aziraphale's shoulder, all without cracking open an eye. 

"Have you thought any more about it, then?" Aziraphale asked gently.

Crowley hissed softly. 

"Oh," Aziraphale said, carefully keeping the giddiness he felt out of his voice, " that is lovely to hear."

Crowley hissed again.

"Of course we don't have to figure out any details now. We have all the time in the world. Well, probably. All time, actually, if you think about it, we have all time-"

Crowley hissed again.

"You too."


	3. Snakes Are, However, Good Kissers, What With That Tongue, And All.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More reptilian brooding, if I'm being honest with you. But also, you know, what the title ever so subtly hints at.

It’s not easy, Crowley thinks, to let go of millennia of habits. Millennia of telling yourself that these things? These things he wanted? They weren’t for him. They weren’t even, when he really thought about it, anything he really wanted. Nice things, loving things, were not, after all, for demons, for the fallen. Love wasn’t for him. Friendship wasn’t meant to be either, and, yet. And yet. Sympathy. An offered wing, shelter.

Crowley was halfway through his second bottle of wine. It was around noon. Aziraphale had left him on his own, to mind the shop, while he fucked off to Toulouse to get some ultra rare text written by some cult-ish monks or something. Crowley hadn’t really paid attention to the angel’s explanation. So he had been sitting there all morning, glaring at potential customers. He was familiar with Aziraphale’s business practises, and they fit in with his mood fairly well at any rate.

He had positioned one of the comfortable chairs, which were littered around the shop to imply that you could sit down to read, but looked antique and fancy enough that you were unlikely to feel that you could, which was a very deliberate choice, about three meters from the door. He had a side table for the wine bottles, but no glass. Only two incredibly dedicated customers had gotten past him so far, and they had been out again in a minute or two, deciding that whatever book they were after were not worth _this_.

It had been two weeks since Crowley had officially moved into the bookshop. Or, well, the flat above the bookshop, technically, but Aziraphale spent little enough time there that it might as well just be an elaborate bedroom. It had been… Well, it had been a little awkward. Crowley hadn’t moved his plants in yet, and whatever his feelings about the angel were, well, Aziraphale’s sense of interior decorating was something between an elderly great grandmother and the owner of a deeply unsuccessful antiques shop. It was decidedly not Crowley’s style. His plants would probably like it, and that was no good. The angel would be an unfortunate influence on them. He wondered whether he could fit a greenhouse somewhere. 

Another tricky thing had been the two of them. Something in their dynamic had shifted slightly, and it made him uneasy. Suddenly Aziraphale was the one making Crowley feel flustered. Crowley had, after a lengthy argument, agreed to sleep in the same bed as Aziraphale. The bed had, ineffably, become about a foot wider than it had used to be. It was not, of course, that Crowley did not want to be close to Aziraphale. He very much did. He wanted to spend a lot of time very close to the angel indeed, ideally without any clothing on. He wanted to touch the angel’s stupid face and tell him how good and important he was, and he had, quite possibly, loved him since that day in 4004 BC when they first met. When an angel disobeyed the Almighty Herself and gave his flaming sword away to the first humans because he was worried about them. Who was rebelliously kind and good. Who had saved the world. Or at least played some sort of part in the process. 

After the bookshop closed, and Crowley had finished the third bottle of wine, and felt pleasantly unfocused, he went up to the flat. He wasn’t intending to snoop. Can’t snoop where you live, right? And he did, he supposed, live here now. And he lived here in a way he had not ever really lived in his own flat. He sat down on Aziraphale’s- on _their_ bed. The bedspread was frilly and the sort of dusty pink that was caused not by trendy colour choices as much as just being pink and very very old, and he wondered idly how long he had to live here before he was allowed to change up the decor. It was not, precisely, that he wanted to turn it into what his own flat was, he didn’t want the same brutalist minimalism, because it made Aziraphale sad, and, to be honest, it never did any wonders for Crowley’s mood either. It had been convenience, mostly. 

Crowley flopped down on the bed, his head and the room both spinning gently. Aziraphale and him hadn’t really _done_ anything on this bed, other than sleep. Crowley had, despite spending 6023 years tempting humans into sin, been too nervous to broach the subject of doing anything, well, _physical_. For one thing he didn’t really know whether the angel was interested in that sort of thing. He wasn’t sure whether he himself was interested in that sort of thing, although when it came to Aziraphale he felt like he was interested in doing most things. Had he had impure thoughts about the angel? Sure. But then, being a demon, all his thoughts were impure by definition, so he wasn’t sure whether that counted. 

He tried to imagine what it would be like. Him. Aziraphale. No clothes, just… Whatever their bodies looked like. Well, it wasn’t like that was a mystery, technically, after all he had spent something like 24 hours in Aziraphale’s body, and had a general idea of what it was like in there. But they weren’t humans. They had human like bodies, but the details were often a bit vague. They had to really make a conscious effort to have, well, all the bits that usually weren’t visible. Having a human form was second nature to them by now, but it wasn't first nature, and occasionally Crowley forgot himself and wound up with a proper snake tongue, or just a slightly too scaly skin texture where the clothing covered. He wasn’t sure what it was like for Aziraphale, who had, as far as he knew, only ever had the one shape, unless you counted Madam Tracy. 

Human bodies, he decided, were quite stupid things. He shifted, shedding his humanity like an old skin, until he was all long coils of shining black and red scales. This felt more reasonable. He slithered up the bed, and curled himself into a loose spiral on top of Aziraphale’s pillow. His snake body hadn’t had three bottles of wine, and so the world no longer spun, but he still fell asleep rather quickly. Snakes were good that way.

–

“Angel, hi.”

Crowley tried and also failed to sound suave and cool and like someone who hadn’t missed Aziraphale terribly even though he’d only been away two days.

“Got what you wanted, then? Monk books?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, and smiled that endearingly gleeful smile that scrunched his face up in joy.

“It was utterly fascinating, Crowley, you would have- well, perhaps you wouldn’t have loved it but, you, ah, you would possibly have tolerated it!”

“High praise.”

“It is! They had this fascinating theory about Heavenly hierarchies as a metaphor for, well, something or rather. It’s all terribly convoluted, and I’ll have to look more into the books.”

The angel put down the suitcase with a loud thump. 

“Has the shop been good?”

“No sales, if that’s what you mean.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s excellent, Crowley, thank you ever so much for looking after it.”

Aziraphale smiled another of his very lovely smiles, and Crowley decided that he’d had enough. 

“Aziraphale, he said, voice low and serious, “there’s something I need to do.”

And before Aziraphale had the chance to reply, Crowley closed the distance between them, and pulled the angel into a kiss. 

It was awkward, as kisses go, a little too much teeth, sunglasses going askew and poking Aziraphale, and Crowley’s heart beating even faster than when Satan rose out of the earth. Aziraphale staggered, hands sort of hovering near Crowley, but not quite touching him. Crowley held Aziraphale tightly, not because he was afraid that the angel wouldn’t like this, but because he needed something to hold onto. When he, at last, pulled back, his sunglasses were foggy with their breath and his mind was foggy with emotion.

“Crowley, would you take those off? I quite like your eyes, you know.”

Crowley was not sure he knew this, but obeyed nevertheless, somehow too distracted not to. He blinked at the brightness of the dimly lit shop, and then he blinked some more to avoid eye contact.

“You know I think I have wanted you to do that since 1941,” Aziraphale said, his hand coming up to touch Crowley’s face gently.

This seemed to Crowley to be both too long and too short. He made a non-committal noise, and looked down. He thought he had perhaps wanted to do this since somewhere around 4003 BC, but felt slightly embarrassed to say so now. He felt, somehow, that Aziraphale would know, that he would have to. 

Wanting to avoid further conversation, Crowley kissed Aziraphale again, and felt rather proud of himself for this ingenious distraction based scheme. Aziraphale’s lips were exactly as soft as he had suspected, not that he ever had wondered about it. The angel ran a hand through Crowley’s hair, and he made a strangled sound in his throat that might have been a moan. Something in Crowley’s chest felt like a fist, clenching and unclenching with emotion, wringing his heart. 

“I-” Crowley began, breathing heavily, and faltered.

He looked helplessly at Aziraphale, who shushed him.

“It’s all right, Crowley dear, we have time.”

Crowley staggered a little, and sat down in the conveniently located armchair. This moment was more intense, more stressful and frightening, than driving the burning Bentley while himself on fire. 

“Crowley dear, are you alright?”

The angel looked worried.

“Should I make us both some tea?”

“I, well, uh, alright then,” Crowley said, followed by some vague noises by which he intended to communicate that while tea was not his preference, it would probably suffice for now, unless the angel volunteered some wine, in which case that would be lovely, thank you very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never meant for this to be anything other than a oneshot, and then a two shot, because snake scarf Crowley was just too good an idea to ignore. I guess this is a chaptered story now, but please let me assure you I have no idea where this is going, have plotted absolutely nothing, and refuse to plan or edit my chapters, based on my firm belief that writing is Not My Thing. (If you, however, would like to look at my Good Omens art, which I feel is better, feel free to check out my tumblr, the link to which is in my author bio thing)


	4. Snakes Are Emotionally Inept But Like Kind Of Shiny Which Is Neat

“Crowley, my dear, I was wondering if you could...”

“Yes?”

“Could you look like you did the day we met?”

Crowley shrugged his human form off, shifting, until an enormous serpent lay coiled on the sofa across from Aziraphale. The angel sighed.

“No, I meant your human- well, your angelic form, I suppose- Fallen. Your fallen angelic form. You remember, don’t you?”

The serpent looked at him for a moment, and then grew a few limbs and also several metres shorter. He looked, however, like Current Crowley, and was frowning.

“Why?”

“I would just like to… To remember what it was like that day,” Aziraphale said, which was true, but excluded the fact that it was because he thought that was the most beautiful the demon’s hair had ever looked, and that he thought Crowley’s black wings were rather dashing.

Crowley grimaced, shrugged, and changed again. His hair fell down past his shoulders in ringlets, his eyes were all snake, and his wings knocked over several piles of books as they sprouted from his back. It looked rather odd in combination with his modern clothes, but Aziraphale thought he looked absolutely stunning anyway. It made his heart flutter like a herd of butterflies. 

“Better?” Crowley asked, trying to position his wings in a comfortable way, failing, giving up, and letting them lay awkwardly along the back of the sofa.

Aziraphale got out of his chair and sat down next to Crowley, looking intently into his yellow eyes.

“Yes,” he breathed.

A dark wing came down to wrap around him, black feathers just gracing his shoulder.

“This what you want, Angel?” Crowley asked in his most alluring voice, tipping Aziraphale’s chin up with a finger.

“Oh, yes, yes, very much.”

Crowley screwed his face up in a frowney grimace

“But why, though? This hair is awful, Angel. I look like an idiot! How do you have such shit taste even in me?”

Aziraphale felt rather affronted.

“I have excellent taste,” he protested, “especially in you!”

Crowley rolled his eyes.

“You know, Crowley, you’ve always looked right. You’ve always looked like you fit in, whenever and wherever we we were, whilst I’ve always just sort of looked like me. So is it, really, so strange that I should have some favourites, of your many, many looks?”

Crowley didn’t answer, but looked slightly pained for a minute, rather as if he were suffering through an internal montage of all his previous hair and fashion choices. It would have gratified the angel to know that this was indeed what was happening. 

“We didn’t… We didn’t talk much in the seventies, did we?” 

“You know, I don’t recall,” Aziraphale said, although he did, and they did, and even he had thought Crowley’s moustache had been a bit much.

Crowley looked relieved.

“It’s just,” began the angel, “that I think you look really rather dashing with longer hair.”

Crowley made a noise which Aziraphale interpreted as him admitting that yes, this was true, of course, he generally looked very good at all times and regardless of hair length.

Aziraphale leant towards him, running his fingers through Crowley’s long, lovely hair. He wondered if the style was meant to look like a nest of very well behaved snakes. He didn’t ask. It seemed the sort of question Crowley would make fun of.

Crowley rolled his shoulders, and his wings disappeared again. Aziraphale was a little disappointed, but he understood. The things really were a pain if you had to interact with furniture in any way. He wondered if they could go somewhere discreet and fly together one day. Preferably after Crowley had performed some sort of drone and satellite photo sabotage so they didn’t wind up as a famous online hoax or something. That would be unfortunate. Heaven had been extremely upset the last time. 

–

Crowley could get used to the angel’s fingers in his hair, he thought. The angel had quite nice fingers, even if they had to be in his long hair from before the humans invented good hairstyles. Neither Heaven nor Hell had quite managed that one, and even for the humans it took a couple of millennia, and they frequently forgot how. Aziraphale, though, had managed to have the exact same hair for over six thousand years, which Crowley thought was impressive, even if he did seem to remember some short lived experimentation with wigs some time in the 1700s. It wasn’t a good century for anyone, fashion wise. No, the angel had always looked exactly as good as he did now. Which was, Crowley was beginning to decide, very. 

This cohabitation thing was strange. It wasn’t quite a romantic relationship yet, although it was a relationship, and they both knew how they felt about each other, really, had known for years, but it still hadn’t clicked into place. They shared a bed, but only for sleeping, and Crowley slept as a snake at least half the time. Partially this was to avoid awkwardness, but Crowley also found that he just enjoyed it more. It was something about the desire to hibernate, he thought, possibly. It might also be that sometimes he woke up and Aziraphale was sleeping with his arm around him and it made Crowley’s brain short circuit. Much like he desperately wanted and needed to look cool, he also desperately wanted and needed Aziraphale to love him. He could admit that now, though only to himself and after a glass or two of wine. 

–

They were laying on his- on _their_ bed, face to face, just a few inches between them. Aziraphale was staring dreamily into Crowley’s eyes, or at least he was attempting to, but Crowley was still wearing his sunglasses, which was making it a bit more challenging. His hair was still long, but least so than earlier, and more naturally messy, rather than the stiff brand new earthly vessel waves he’d had before. Aziraphale spending some time running his fingers through it had also helped with that.

“Crowley, please, I know you think they make you look “cool” but-”

“I do! I do look cool. Very cool,” the demon insisted, rising to lean on his elbow, which had the effect of revealing the mushed pillow indents on the side of his face.

He was many things, and cool was one of them, but, perhaps, not right now.

“Yes, yes of course dear, you are. The “coolest” demon I know.”

Crowley groaned, in that way he did whenever Aziraphale embarrassed him in public with his, as Crowley put it, inherent squareness. Aziraphale was not entirely sure what this meant, but he thought squares were perfectly fine shapes, good and solid, squares. Crowley sighed a long suffering sigh, and moved his face in weird grimaces until his sunglasses gave up and fell off. 

“Look,” Aziraphale said, reaching out and taking Crowley’s hand, “I need to tell you something.”

“Is it,” the demon asked, “that I’m incredibly cool?”

“It is not,” Aziraphale admitted.

Crowley pouted. This was not the height of his coolness. It was, however, near the peak of Crowley being strangely, well, adorable, although he would not have tolerated being informed of this. But the weird faces he made was a part of it. A part of what had inspired Aziraphale to inform Crowley of an important fact. He had thought, for a little while, about how he was going to say this in a way that did not, as the “kids” apparently said these days, “freak Crowley out”.

“Crowley, I love you.”

Aziraphale had thought he said it fairly nicely, had thought he picked the right moment, and a place where Crowley could not possibly fall down in shock or anything like that, but it was, clearly, not enough, because the opposite side of the bed was now occupied by a large red and black serpent. The serpent was, somehow, inexplicably, wearing sunglasses. It did not look “cool”.

Aziraphale sighed.

–

Crowley had, in the past few millennia, developed his snakiness as a foolproof defence mechanism. With humans, it usually scared them away, made them faint, or, sometimes, think they were hallucinating, although on one memorable occasion his trick had started a smallish religion. With Aziraphale it was largely useful in avoiding difficult conversation. The angel, as it turned out, felt a bit weird about having serious conversations with him while he was a snake, which he took full advantage of.

The angel had said he loved him. An angel, holy, holier-than-him, certainly, had said he loved him. A demon. Somewhere God was either very upset or very amused, and he couldn’t tell which was more likely. Crowley, personally, was somewhat in shock. Not because he didn’t know, because he had, really, when he thought about it, known for a while now. Not as long as he had known that he loved Aziraphale, which was more or less the lifespan of the Earth, but a while still. No, he was a little bit in shock because hearing it, that was different. Made it real. Well, realer, anyway.

Crowley sneaked a look at the angel. He was looking at him patiently, with just a hint of disappointment. Well. That was his fault, if he had any expectations of Crowley, he certainly hadn’t done anything to encourage that sort of thing.

“You know, you are, just a little, just a tiny bit infuriating sometimes,” Aziraphale said, although very little in his tone hinted at anything like fury.

Crowley hissed his thanks, anyway. Then he slithered closer to Aziraphale, until his head rested next to the angel’s, the rest of him a curlicue of scales. Aziraphale stroked his head, and Crowley hissed something that he knew Aziraphale knew, but that he also knew Aziraphale wanted him to say with his human mouth. And, though it was terrifying, he let himself look human again, and did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been informed snakes have no eyelids and my response to that is that Crowley is a magic demon snake and that I'm too lazy to go back and rewrite. Also feel like this fic peaked at chapter two, and the following bits are more mushy and less funny, which is. A thing. Maybe I'll start a new fic so I can write a glacial burn type thing. Or flashbacks. I want to keep writing this so that I don't have to write my original writing summer project.


	5. Snakes Are Too Tired To Think Of Clever Chapter Titles But Might Choose To Edit This One In The Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not to, like, spoil anything but there are smooches.

“If you,” Aziraphale asked, swinging his half full glass of wine around and nearly spilling it on his coat, “could unfall-”

 

“Unfall? Whazzat mean?”

 

“Well, uh, you see, if you could, I suppose, uh, Rise? Would you?”

 

“Rise?”

 

Crowley was confused. He lay sprawled across Aziraphale’s nicest 18th century sofa, legs swung over the back in way that would have cut off his bloodstream if he were a normal human. A glass of wine, nearly empty, wobbled where it stood on his chest, but miraculously never fell. Aziraphale was sitting properly in his chair, although more relaxed than he usually would, cradling a now empty bottle of something red and old and terribly expensive in his other hand.

 

“Like what? Like become one of you lot again? Get my wings bleached?”

 

“Yeah- yes,” Aziraphale confirmed, and sloshed some wine onto his trousers.

 

“Nooo. No. You seen your lot? You don’t even like ‘em, and you’re one.”

 

Crowley’s answer was fast and as self assured as someone who is having a little trouble remembering what muscles make the words go could be. But, he thought, but. But what if he could. It was not, after all, like he had felt that strongly the _need_ to fall back then. Just hung round with the wrong crowd, was all. Maybe if he’d met Aziraphale back then it would be different. Maybe they could have been what? Mildly disobedient angels together? But then, only one of them would have been sent to Earth, and that would have been no good. He couldn’t even imagine having to have spent six more millennia up in Heaven.

 

“That’s… I’m offended, Crowley, real- really,” the angel said with the air of someone who wasn't, but thought it would keep the conversation going, so that they could get to the point they wanted to make, only the conversation had not yet progressed far enough for it to be a natural thing to bring up.

 

Aziraphale was dabbing ineffectually at the wine stain on his pants with a napkin, and directed an innocent glance at Crowley, who rolled his eyes and miracled the stain out. What did the angel do before him. His own miracles, Crowley supposed.

"Oh, don't be," Crowley said, waving a dismissive hand that knocked over an empty bottle, "you don't count as an angel any more, do you, you're..."

He paused, then gesticulated wildly, as if trying to communicate his intention through broken semaphore.

"Different," he concluded after a while.

"Better," he added, more quietly.

Aziraphale's face went through a journey as he processed this, beginning at righteously offended, taking a short-cut through confusion and ending up somewhere very close to swelling love and adoration. The angel emptied his glass, as if to fortify himself for the reply he was going to make, but failed to think of anything.

"Angel," Crowley said, "You know I... Well, you know how I feel about you. You know how I feel about Heaven. Besides, wouldn't be as much of a rebellion, would it? If we were both, you know, all holy and good. Wouldn't be any fun."

"Fun? Do you think it has been fun? Me having to- to worry all the time, about what your superiors would do to you if they ever found out?"

"Me? What about your bosses? What about Michael and Gabriel and their gang? I was there when they tried to kill you, you know."

Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak, then stopped and frowned.

"You know, I hadn't thought about that."

Crowley blinked. It wasn't something he did often, and so carried some weight.

"You really don't have the self interest needed to survive Hell," Crowley told the angel, voice even, emotions decidedly less so.

He was having some trouble with what the angel had told him. Most of this trouble was feeling like a vice was crushing his heart and restricting his lungs. It was taking all of his concentration, willpower and respect for Aziraphale not to revert to his snake shape. He refilled his glass.

"Well, I wouldn't want to," Aziraphale said, crossing his arms and huffing.

"What, so you're asking me if I'd Rise for you, but you won't even consider Falling for me?" Crowley asked, because lashing out was a high second choice for dealing with _emotions_.

Aziraphale frowned.

"That wasn't what I meant, Crowley, and you know i- Crowley, don't-"

But it was too late. The large snake hissed something that was just an angry reptilian noise and slithered under the sofa. Aziraphale sighed, and then made a face like he was experiencing debilitating constipation as the wine returned to the bottles from whence it had come.

"You're being childish, Crowley," he informed the shadow underneath the sofa, "please come out."

The snake hissed something about how it had, several millennia previously, but Aziraphale only looked confused. The snake poked its head out from under the sofa, baring more fangs than any reasonable snake should possess. Aziraphale sat down, taking care not to wrinkle his miraculously wine free trousers any more than necessary, and let his hand rest next to the snake. 

"Please?"

He tried to look as angelic and deserving of compliance as he possibly could, which was not an easy expression to summon up on command, and had, if anything, the opposite of the intended effect. The snake hissed something that was very rude indeed.

"There's no need for that," Aziraphale said, wagging a finger.

The snake, not really admitting defeat as much as discovering that the space beneath the sofa was both dusty and unpleasant, shrank in size, and slithered up Aziraphale's arm, coming to rest along his shoulders. He hissed something into Aziraphale's ear, but was interrupted by the angel giggling as the snake's tongue tickled his ear. The snake sighed as best a snake could. The angel was infuriating. The angel was also, well, infuriatingly endearing. The snake wrapped his tail around the angel's neck for balance and lifted his head up until he was eye to eye with Aziraphale, who smiled the smile of someone who was being slowly choked, but didn't want to bring it up for fear it would make things awkward.

Crowley hissed.

"Yes, I, well, I suppose I can see how you would feel that way. It wasn't what I meant, you understand. I simply think you would also make a good angel-"

More hissing.

"Yes, I'm perfectly aware of that. I might not have met you yet, but I was there for the Fall. But you're not- let me finish, you're not, as such, a particularly bad person. There's more to celestial duties than putting gold foil on your face and looking smug."

The snake hissed appreciatively.

"Yes, well, exactly. You never even did all of the awful things you took credit for."

Hiss.

"I know, I know. The humans can be frightful. You just tried to do the Right thing in the Wrong way. And I'm not so sure that's inherently bad, any more."

Aziraphale hissed, then, as the breath was knocked out of him by Crowley suddenly being the size and weight of a human again on top of him. 

"Sorry," Crowley said, brushing dust from his jacket, "didn't think that through."

"I didn't really mean that, I suppose, about you being disobedient enough to make a good demon. You don't need to Fall. You'd look rubbish with a spider on your head."

"I well, I have, sort of fallen," Aziraphale said, a shy smile on his face.

Crowley frowned.

"For you, I mean," Aziraphale said, looking terribly satisfied with himself.

"This far," Crowley said, pressing his thumb and index finger as close as he could, "from a return to snakedom."

This did nothing to wipe the stupid, smug, dumb, sweet, and endearing grin from the angel's face, so Crowley attempted to use his mouth to do so, with some success. His tongue, he noted, was still bifurcated, but in the manner of humans with a penchant for body modification, rather than the thin, flat thing his proper snake mouth had. It made for some interesting new kissing techniques.

Aziraphale, after being thoroughly kissed, dusted himself off, and sat down on the sofa. Crowley sat down also, but sideways, his back against the armrest and his legs draped across Aziraphale's lap, because it went against his nature to do anything properly, and sometimes when he did it made Aziraphale blush.

"I still think," the demon mused, "that dark wings would suit you. Good contrast."

The angel glanced at him, but didn't argue. Presumably he was thinking the same thing about Crowley with light wings, and Crowley couldn't disagree with him, because he looked objectively pretty great anyway. 

"I'm sure there's some sort of feather safe hair dye," he continued, and grinned at the angel's horrified expression.

"You wouldn't-"

"Demon, remember."

"Yes, you do insist on reminding me."

"Ah, you'd get bored otherwise, Angel."

The angel looked like he was about to argue, shook his head, and then nodded.

"I suppose."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some real good ideas for more chapter last night, but fell asleep and forgot them. Inspired by Crowley I now intend to sleep until I can remember them, or at least until mosquito season ends.


	6. Snake Domestication And Other Serpentine Activities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating's about to go up maybe.

“No, no, you’ve got to press- No, not that one. Satan Below, how have you gotten this far into the new millennia without learning a single thing?”

Crowley was leaning over Aziraphale’s shoulder, and scowling. Aziraphale was cheerfully attempting to make an ebay account, and failing. The computer in the back room of the bookshop had been there since 1991, when Aziraphale had bought it, or, rather, been gifted it by a very exasperated Crowley, who had then helped himself to compensation out of Aziraphale’s wine hoard, because Hell had been watching more closely in those days, and it had been unwise to do anything for free. Also, Aziraphale had the best wine.

“It’s really not that hard, Angel, you’ve got to type in your name- Not that one, the fake human one, yeah, and- How did you close the browser?”

“What’s a “browser”?”

Crowley blessed, and tried not to let his frustration get the better of him. Aziraphale, who had the computer literacy of a pensioner, and had only ever used one website, an online book dealer specialising in old and valuable christian texts, was enthusiastically trying to click on the internet explorer icon on his desktop, not realising it was poorly photoshopped onto his desktop background by Crowley, in an attempt to force him to use a more sensible browser. The angel had a small notebook lying next to his computer, where he meticulously wrote down passwords and usernames, along with full urls. Crowley was attempting to teach him how to get a larger variety of books, by using more than a single website, and deeply regretting it.

Crowley swapped out his computer for the newest model every six months or so, and his smart phone every three months. He didn’t need to, as whatever machine he owned always performed slightly better than whatever newest and most powerful device had just been released, but he felt like it was a part of his image. Remarkably, Aziraphale’s ancient and clunky desktop performed just as well, despite the fact the it was not plugged in, and had never been updated by the angel. It had, however, a tendency to update itself, whenever Crowley gave it a meaningful glare. 

“So, did I do it?” Aziraphale asked, beaming at the demon.

“No.”

“Oh.”

The angel sounded a little disappointed, and Crowley growled, and took the mouse.

“Hell’s sake, let me, Angel.”

–

Aziraphale was not as bad with computers as Crowley believed, but still not very good. He did, however, enjoy making the demon help him, and found it quite amusing how annoyed Crowley got. He felt a little bad about this, but reasoned that making demons feel bad must, somehow, be thwarting them, and as such justified it as Proper Celestial Business. Had the demon realised this, he would have been proud and outraged in equal measure.

“I don’t see,” said Aziraphale, “why I can’t just call and write to book dealers any more.”

Crowley groaned a groan familiar to any normally computer literate young person with an older relative. He was, very efficiently indeed, setting up Aziraphale’s new account, and the website, sensing the demon’s anger, was unusually cooperative, for fears its servers would all suddenly decide not to spend any more time on this particular plane of existence. 

“I’ll go make us some tea, shall I?”

Crowley did not respond, which Aziraphale took as a resounding affirmative. One had to be hopeful to be an angel.

–

Crowley wondered what he was meant to to do with all his _things_. The flat over the bookshop was not particularly large, and Aziraphale had had millennia to acquire books and snuff tins and stupid looking frilly table cloths for his now antique little ornate tables. They were bought new, of course, most of his antiques were. But this meant that there wasn’t really any space for Crowley to move in _to_. The demon had toyed with the concept of a third floor miraculously appearing over the flat, into which he could, essentially, fit the entirety of his own flat, but that rather ruined the point of the moving in. And he did want that. He had also thought about doing nothing, which meant returning to his own- his _old_ flat once or twice a week to check in on the plants and ignore the messages on his answering machine. This was not a problem. He was very well off, because he had decided he should be, and owning a flat and not using it did seem like something proper demonic to do, contributing to the rise in rent in London and so forth. But he did miss some things. He missed his plants. He missed his oversized espresso machine. He missed his large wall mounted television. Aziraphale did have a TV, but it was bought in 1965, and only showed programming Aziraphale enjoyed. There was not a massive overlap in taste.

Despite Aziraphale’s attempt to make his bookshop as unfriendly to potential customers as he could, the shop did feel loved. Mostly it was loved by Aziraphale, but the angel had a lot of love to give, and it infused the place, and made it feel like a very pleasant place to be if you were supernatural enough to sense it, and, also, someone whom Aziraphale wanted to be there. Which, essentially, meant it felt very nice and welcoming to Aziraphale and Crowley and no one else.

Crowley had taken to helping Aziraphale out in the bookshop, for something to do, now that Hell wasn’t checking in on him as often and thoroughly as had been the case before. His help primarily consisted of making the customers uncomfortable, sometimes by sitting in one of the dubious limits arm chairs and looking at the customers as if they had walked into his living room. Other times he would hang, as a snake, from the upper level, waiting for someone to wander close enough and hiss at them. At one point, someone had reported this, and some very serious people came round to try to capture the snake that had been seen in the shop, but only found a nice gay couple with a bookshop, and no hints of any reptilians anywhere, who had heard of such a thing, snakes in a bookshop, what will they think of next, and the complaint had been dismissed. It helped that the video of Crowley on the phone of the customer had deleted itself as soon as they left the building. But Crowley had been somewhat more careful about the snakiness after that.

–

One day, about two months after Crowley moved in, there appeared a new room in the flat. It was quite large, and very empty, and despite its physical location at the back of the building, had a lovely view of the street. If you opened the window, however, it faced the brick wall about two feet away. Crowley discovered it, almost on accident, on his way to get some nice breakfast wine. 

“What’s this?” 

“Hmm?” 

Aziraphale acted innocent, which was to be expected from an angel, but it still made Crowley grimace at him.

“You know, Angel. New room. What’s that about?”

Crowley had found the angel in the kitchen, where he had been making cocoa with little marshmallows in it. He smiled brightly at Crowley.

“Oh, I thought you might like it,” he said, “somewhere to put your plants, or, you know, whatever things you miss from your own place. Not that I’m saying you should get rid of your place, of course, but in case you felt like, you know, you needed your own space.”

Crowley squinted at him, trying to decide whether angels had mind reading powers, and if this was some new threat that ought to be reported to Hell, or whether, perhaps, knowing someone for six thousand years meant you just knew each other well enough to understand these kinds of things.

“Thank you?”

“Oh, you’re welcome, it was just a matter of expanding the space a little bit, you see. Cocoa?”

Crowley, distracted, accepted the mug. His was darker, less sweet, and had no marshmallows. It also had a hint of chilli. Instead of the angel wing handle that was on Aziraphale’s cup, it had a cartoon devil’s tail for you to hold. Crowley wasn’t entirely sure whether this was an insult of some kind, or just the angel trying to be nice and not quite getting there. Probably the latter, he decided.  
They drank their cocoa in silence for a bit, and Aziraphale seemed like he was trying not to smile too much. He did always get terribly excited about doing good deeds. 

–

“Satan, I know I invented the place, but this is, actually, Hellish.”

They were at Ikea. It would be fun, Aziraphale had said. It was important, the angel felt, to actually buy your things, and not simply will them into existence. Crowley did not agree. He had thought of the big windowless box full of screaming children, bland food and inscrutably named furniture to torture humans, not himself. This was the burning M25 all over again. 

“No, I promise, the desks are just around that corner, I checked,” Aziraphale assured him, pointing to a very small map.

They rounded the corner, and found themselves in the bathroom section.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Hold on.”

Crowley scowled at passers by as the angel attempted to figure out what direction they had actually gone in. So far they had acquired a sofa (charcoal grey, all square lines and severe shapes), some decorative pillows in black, the pattern of which Aziraphale claimed looked like tiny snakes, and some new pots for Crowley’s plants. They still lacked a desk, a desk chair that was slightly more ergonomic (Aziraphale’s insistence) than the decorative throne one, which had already moved into the room, and some shelving. Crowley wanted to set fire to the place. Most of the plants they sold were made of plastic, which he did think was somewhat ironic, but mostly depressing.

“This way, I think,” Aziraphale said, and steered them back in the direction they had come from.

–

Crowley’s office, as he insisted on calling it, Crowley’s room made it sound like he was a child, was beginning to take shape. They had installed a heating lamp above the sofa, because Crowley was a snake at heart, and it seemed like a good idea. The plants were all moved in, and the medieval torture shears were mounted on the wall, just to keep them on their toes. Or roots. The desk had a very large and extremely expensive computer setup which Crowley barely used, but felt he needed. All the furniture was sleek and dark, but the desktop background on the computer was a very unsuccessful selfie Aziraphale had taken with Crowley’s plants. 

Crowley, in his limbless and scaly shape, lounged on the sofa. He had, before being a snake, set up an ipad so he could watch TV this way, but it felt strange, somehow. He kept feeling like the series he watched should have cast snakes in the starring roles. Aziraphale was sitting next to him, reading. Or sort of next to him. Under him? Crowley was attempting to take up the entirety of the space, but parts of him were also on Aziraphale’s lap. It felt nice. It felt very nice when the angel occasionally stroked his scales.

“Are you,” Aziraphale asked, carefully placing a bookmark in his book and laying it neatly on the sleek glass coffee table, “happy?”

Crowley lifted himself, winding himself around the angel’s arm until he was looking into his eyes. He hissed.

“I just mean, I feel like. I don’t know. Like perhaps I’ve made too many of the decisions, and you have just, well, gone along with them. And that doesn’t seem fair.”

Crowley hissed again.

“Yes, could you?”

Crowley changed back into his human shape, in a surprising turn of events, and was still laying vaguely on top of Aziraphale. It felt slightly less nice now, although that was mainly to do with what angles his human skeleton felt were acceptable. He wiggled around until he found a more comfortable position, which involved his head laying in Aziraphale’s lap. It was a very nice place for a head to lay, he decided. Soft, warm, close to Aziraphale.

“I’m not- Well, I don’t necessarily disagree,” Crowley said, looking up at the underside of Aziraphale’s face, which was not a particularly flattering angle. 

“But it’s good. Well, bad. Well,” he floundered, “it’s a thing that I enjoy, whatever that makes it. I want to, y’know, stay.”

Aziraphale beamed down at him, and it might have been the heat lamp above them, but the angel’s face seemed to emit a glow, like an actual halo. Maybe that was just what happened when the angel smiled. It was rather difficult to be cool and detached when the angel smiled like that, and Crowley was no longer so sure he needed to be. At least not right now. 

Crowley got up, twisted round, and positioned himself so he was straddling Aziraphale, and placed his arms around the angel’s neck. Aziraphale blushed. It was, the demon thought, a very good look for him.

“I want,” Crowley began, “you. Everything else we have time to sort out. I know this is the time, currently, that we are having for, well, sorting this out, but, with any luck, we’ll have a century or so before Hell and Heaven get their shit together, and we can, you know,” he finished with an unintelligible noise.

Aziraphale kissed him. This was the first time the angel had taken the initiative, kissing-wise, and it surprised Crowley, and then very shortly after delighted him. From the corner the plants were wondering if this was some sort of new intimidation technique, and decided to grow better, in case that would save them from the experience of having to sense this sort of thing again.

Crowley attempted to remove the angel’s jacket without having to stop kissing him, and struggled for a few moments before giving up, and miracling it onto the desk, where it folded itself properly. The angel’s hands were in his hair (currently long, good for tangling fingers in during romantic encounters), on his neck, on his face, sliding down his chest and fumbling with buttons. Crowley pulled away for a moment, to look Aziraphale in the eye, to confirm that they were going ahead with this rather massive act of blasphemy. The angel looked a little nervous, but not about divine retribution.

“Are we...” Crowley asked, letting the question hang in the air.

“I, yes, I think we are, rather. Should we, you know?”

“I mean, I think we’d need to, wouldn’t we? Haven’t really done this with an angel before, fallen or otherwise. Don’t know that we’re designed for it out the gate.”

They both made grimaces of concentration that, had they been watching each other, might have been deeply unsexy enough to ruin the mood. Angels, whether or not they have fallen, are sexless unless they really put their mind to it, which is what Crowley and Aziraphale were doing. Crowley shuddered.

“Feels weird. Haven’t done that for a while.”

He gave his own and Aziraphale’s clothes a glare, and they removed themselves from the celestial beings and folded themselves on top of Aziraphale’s coat.

“Oh, but your sofa,” Aziraphale exclaimed, “it’s brand new!”

“Gotta wear it in,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale didn’t argue with that, partly because it was a good point, but also because Crowley had followed the good point with kissing him, and the angel’s mouth and attention were both fully occupied.

They had both chosen to manifest the sort of human genitalia that traditionally was found in members of the human species that matched what their human vessels looked like, which is to say dicks. Crowley had not had sex for a good while. It felt weird, always, with the humans. Like he was playing some sort of trick on them, which of course he was, but it just did not really do it for him. He had not had sex with any celestial or otherwise supernatural beings, because there had only ever been one he wanted to do so with, and he had not had the opportunity before this moment. So it was all… New.

Crowley didn’t know what Aziraphale had or had not done before, and he was not going to ask. It didn’t matter, and he preferred not to know. But the angel did, at one point, referring to his newly grown dick, ask where it went, which gave the demon some idea as to his experience. 

Aziraphale had a good body, Crowley decided, because he liked it. It was soft, not bony and thin like himself, and the angel smelled, unsurprisingly, of tea and old books. Crowley kissed his angel’s face, his neck, down his chest, the inside of his thighs. He took Aziraphale’s dick into his mouth and experimented with the sorts of gasps and moans he could wring from the angel. Perhaps the humans were onto something with this sex thing, after all. The angel writhed and twisted beneath him, grabbing ineffectually at Crowley’s shoulders, his hair, and at one inspired point his wings. Aziraphale muttered incoherently, but Crowley did catch the phrase _wily serpent_ at least once. 

It did not take the angel terribly long to come. It was, after all, their first time together, and though it was only an occasional hobby, Crowley did pride himself on giving excellent head. It seemed the sort of thing a demon ought to be good at. As the angel lay, panting and flushed, recovering, the demon miracled the cum out of his hair and also the sofa. He slithered, as well as his human form managed to, up the sofa until he lay next to Aziraphale, resting his head on the angel’s shoulder.

“That was,” Aziraphale breathed, “invigorating.”

Crowley snorted a laugh.

“Be your turn to try next time,” he warned.

“Oh! Oh. I’ll have to do some research, then.”

“You have a willing test subject.”

They were quiet for a moment, both thinking about the further possibilities, but soon dozed off, Crowley’s arm making its way across Aziraphale’s stomach, the angel’s face turning so his chin rested in the demon’s hair. Somewhere, God was, as Crowley had suspected, both amused and satisfied. She had been watching this play out for over six thousand years, and had been thinking it was about time. In the room, the plants felt quite traumatised by it all, and one of them grew thorns, just as a general defence mechanism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was deeply unsure whether to include scene of them doing it. It is also thoroughly unsexy, which is unsurprising as I am quite bad at writing smut. 
> 
> Also unsure whether Crowley's plants view him as a prisoner, father or boss, but all of those would be traumatic to sense getting it on just a metre or two away.


	7. Snakes On A Sofa, Snakes In A Car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Excursion Occurs.

Aziraphale didn't sleep much. He rarely did. The bed in his flat was mostly a formality, which he usually used perhaps once a week for a nap if he felt like it. Crowley however, loved sleeping, and found opportunities to do so often. Perhaps it was the serpent in him. Aziraphale had been spending a great deal more time in bed since Crowley moved in. Sometimes he slept, but mostly briefly, and spent time reading, or just watching the demon or snake next to him (it depended on Crowley's mood, and sometimes he changed shape in his sleep, depending, the angel presumed, on the contents of his dreams). It was quite nice. Currently, Crowley was draped across him, long hair spread over them both, and drooling a little on Aziraphale's chest. It was quite endearing, really, but did make it difficult for the angel to read, so he watched the demon sleep, idly tracing the small snake on the side of his cheekbone.

Aziraphale had, despite what Crowley thought, had several forms. He had been, on an occasion or two, a white dove, holding some kind of twig, to symbolise peace. It was not his favourite form. He had also, early on, taken a shape that was a sort of flaming wheel with innumerable eyes. That one was strictly for intimidation, which wasn't really something he liked anyway. It was, also, fairly uncomfortable, being on fire. No, he liked his mostly human shaped form. It was comfortable, like a sofa worn in just right, perhaps not the most modern and stylish thing, but the cushions have perfect indents and you can't even really notice the wine stains any more. 

Crowley seemed to be adapting well to their new living situation, the angel thought, although to an outside viewer adapting well looked a lot like frustration and panic. But Aziraphale had known Crowley for thousands of years, and had eventually come to the conclusion that that was just what he was like. And the angel could understand this. He too worried. He worried about whether what he was doing was right, about what Heaven would think, what God would think, and, increasingly, about what Crowley would think. The demon, for all he claimed not to care what people, celestial, demonic or otherwise, thought of him, cared desperately about what people thought of him. It just wasn't that he wanted people to like him, unless said people were Aziraphale. Crowley, above all, wanted everyone to think he was cool. And it was, Aziraphale had read somewhere, a defining trait of cool people that they were not obsessed with being cool. Aziraphale was not entirely sure what this indicated, as he had never fully understood the concept of coolness in the first place, at least not in the last few centuries. 

"'Msss," Crowley said, stirring.

"Blah," he added, removing a lock of his own hair from his mouth.

"Guh," he concluded, and opened his eyes.

"Morning!" Aziraphale said brightly, "Or, rather, afternoon. I think it's about five."

"'Ning," Crowley mumbled, blinking against the brightness.

The room was not particularly well lit, as it was dark and cloudy outside the window, and the heat lamp was, if anything, orange, but the demon's insistence of constant sunglasses had perhaps lowered his tolerance. Snake eyes weren't optimised for bright daylight, after all. He dragged himself up slightly, until he was able to bury his face in Aziraphale's neck, presumably as a defence against the light.

"Sleep all right, dear?"

Crowley answered with a muffled groan. He was, of course, perfectly capable of miracling himself awake and alert, but had apparently chosen not to. Perhaps he enjoyed it. Or perhaps he just needed an excuse to use the enormous coffee machine that took up whatever space on his desk that wasn't computer set-up and small pastel cacti.

"Mf ow oo," Crowley muttered into Aziraphale's neck, rather touchingly, and sat up.

"Why's there braids in my hair?"

The angel blushed.

"Ah, well, I've been awake the last eight hours, and you were blocking my book, so..."

Crowley tried to scowl, but looked too amused to pull it of convincingly. He made no attempts to remove the braids, and instead walked over to make himself some coffee.  
"Want one?"

"You know I don't, my dear."

"Your loss."

Crowley had not bothered with such formalities as putting his clothes back on, and this was the first time Aziraphale had gotten a good look at the demon's earthly form, at least while his earthly form wasn't on top of his own. It was quite a nice body, he thought, if one had to have one. All long and sharp angles. Aziraphale did not, as such, feel sexual desire. That was the thing with having to conjure up genitals when you needed them. It didn't occur to him, usually. The feelings he had had about Crowley had always been in his head, and in his chest, and, oddly, occasionally in his wings. He wasn't sure what that was about. But after the experience of the previous night he thought it might be nice to give it another go some time. 

"Angel," Crowley began, settling next to him with one long leg draped across both of Aziraphale's, "did you have fun?"

"Hmm?"

"Last night, I mean. Or this morning, technically. Time's not real."

The demon's eyes flickered back and forth between Aziraphale and the coffee, never quite making eye contact. Crowley had never been very good at hiding his emotions, despite the sunglasses, and, frankly, by this century Aziraphale thought he had gotten decently good at reading him. He put a hand on the demon's knee.

"I did, love, I did."

While Crowley did not breathe a literal sigh of relieved, he certainly appeared to do so mentally.

"Didn't know whether it was your sort of thing," Crowley said.

"I don't know," said the angel, "whether it is the sort of thing I would do just for the sake of it. But with you, my dear, I will do most things very enthusiastically."

The demon grimaced, but without any real feeling behind it. 

"You're embarrassing," he informed the angel, and handed him a cup of steaming tea that had not existed until half a second earlier.

"Oh, thank you." 

Aziraphale took a sip, and burned his tongue. It was a spicier tea than he usually chose, and also the approximate temperature of lava. Or Hellfire.

"You know," Aziraphale said, after having recovered, "I had thought we ought, perhaps, to check up on the Anti-Christ."

Crowley frowned.

"Why?"

"Well, I feel rather responsible for the lad."

"Why?" Crowley asked again, with more eyebrows.

Aziraphale, taking a cue from Crowley, gestured wordlessly but with great emphasis.

"Because of Everything," he added, seeing Crowley's expression.

"I'm not sure I see the point," Crowley said, "but I suppose we could."

He glared at the coffee maker, and it dutifully roared into action, even though he had forgotten to plug it in. The coffee dripped from the machine, but despite the machine being across the room from the demon, managed to land in his cup, without seeming to travel the distance inbetween at any point. Aziraphale raised his eyebrows.

"You've just got to not lower your expectations," Crowley said, "and stuff won't let you down."

"Huh," said Aziraphale.

\--

The drive to Tadfield was efficient, because Crowley didn't see any reason why it shouldn't be, despite the fact it was 16:30 on a Friday. The Bentley was blasting Killer Queen, and the windows were open to let the wind in. Crowley enjoyed it while his hair was long, and after the angel had gone to the effort of (badly) braiding it he hadn't had the heart to change it. Aziraphale was looking out the window with immense worry, which was entirely unnecessary as the cars in front of them always moved out of their way, no matter how fast they were going. Had the angel had a hat, he would have clutched it. 

The sun was shining brightly down on Hogback lane 4. The weather in Tadfield had, despite the Armageddon't, remained conspicuously perfect, with the odd exception or two, which usually coincided with days Adam was sick or otherwise unable to enjoy it. No point in it being nice out, the former Anti-Christ figured, if he couldn't be there to appreciate it.

As Crowley sped through the small curving roads of the village, nearly hitting half a dozen pedestrians and inspiring a Mr. R. P. Tyler to write another letter to the local paper about city folk and their irresponsible ways, Aziraphale was closing his eyes, and praying. He was praying not in direct communication to the Almighty, as much as just in general, in the way humans did. The Almighty, who was listening, having nothing better to do on that particular afternoon, had some sympathy, but did not interfere with the demonic driving. One had to let things play out, she reasoned, otherwise what was the point.

\--

Adam Young squinted up at Crowley and Aziraphale.

"Didn't think you'd be back," he said. 

He was flanked by the Them. They had been biking along when Crowley almost hit them, only to find that the car had, within less than a second, parked itself neatly, if illegally, by the side of the road. Adam did not know much about parking regulations, being, after all, recently twelve. That isn't to say that Crowley would not also have parked the car illegally, but he would have done so on purpose. 

The Them had all gotten a little bit taller since the year before, and also somewhat more awkward, both physically and socially, but this did not keep them from aggressively staring down the angel and demon, even if they couldn't quite remember who they were.

"Thought we'd check up on you," Crowley said, "see you're not making any trouble. Or, rather, making sure you are, but not, you know..."

He trailed off with a vague noise. He didn't want to be too specific, as he wasn't sure what the other children remembered, and because some details were hazy to him, too. Aziraphale nodded in agreement. The children looked sceptical. 

"Adam, who are those men?" Pepper asked, and looked like she had a series of follow up questions about how, exactly, these two Old People knew him, and whether there was anything Suspicious going on.

"Oh, they're just people," Adam said unhelpfully.

"Old family friends," Crowley added with a decidedly unfriendly smile, "known him since the day he was born. Well, night, anyway."

"Why's your hair so stupid looking?" Brian asked.

Aziraphale put a hand on Crowley's shoulder before he could do anything Aziraphale would regret.

"Please don't," he said.

"See? _See?_ This is what happens, Angel, when we do what you say."

The Them exchanged glances. Dog, who had been attempting diplomacy with one of the neighbourhood cats, and failing, came trotting over, with four fresh claw marks across his snout. He yapped, and then ran to Crowley and jumped up on him, getting mud over the demon's designer jeans.

"Oh, hey," Crowley said, "haven't seen you in a while, eh? Gotten a bit smaller since last time."

He scratched behind Dog's ears, and the dog's eyes glowed a benevolent red.

"How d'you know Dog?" Pepper asked, "And how would he have gotten smaller? That's _not_ how dogs work, you know."

Aziraphale tried to hide a smile as Crowley crouched down to give Dog some more thorough pats.

"Used to be colleagues," Crowley said, which was, in a manner of speaking, true.

Aziraphale gave up on hiding his amusement.

"What?" Pepper asked, "like you were a police officer and he was a police dog, then?"

Crowley looked mildly offended.

"A, uh, similar concept, yeah."

The young girl looked unconvinced.

"Well, I'm fine," Adam announced, apropos of very little.

"I haven't done done anything bad in ages. Not since Saturday, anyway, and no one should be able to own apple trees."

"Property is theft," Pepper added.

\--

"Do you think young Warlock is doing well?" Aziraphale asked.

They were speeding back towards London after half an hour more of deeply unproductive conversation, partly with the Them, and, shortly after, Newt and Anathema, who had come bicycling past, and, like many people living in villages, felt the absurd need to stop and talk. Anathema in particular had had A Lot Of Questions, all of which Crowley and Aziraphale had done their best to not answer.

"Hmm? Don't know. Suppose he must be, mustn't he?"

Aziraphale frowned. 

"Why?"

"He's a kid," Crowley said, "resilient little buggers."

"It's just," the angel said, as Freddy Mercury requested they save him, save him, saaaave hiiim, "That he's not got us to look after him any more. I haven't even thought about him much in the last year, you know that? We spent years of our lives, most of his, looking after the boy. And we haven't even checked."

This was not strictly true. Crowley, who had, if not invented social media, then at least claimed responsibility for it to his bosses, had kept tabs on the boy online, and knew him to be quite enthusiastic about the craft of mining, currently.

"And the success of this trip inspired you, is that it?"

"Well, we did see that he was all right," the angel said, only a little defensively.

"And get verbally assaulted by children," Crowley added darkly.

"Oh, don't be silly, your hair looks lovely."

Crowley grimaced.

"Not my point."

"If you must know," Crowley admitted, "I've been, ah, keeping an eye. Kid's fine. Entering puberty, which as far as I understand it means he'll not be fine for half a decade or so, but other than that, he's good, and convinced his nanny is surprisingly good with technology."

Aziraphale brightened.

"Really? Oh, that's wonderful! I'm so grateful you still care, my dear!"

"Shut up."

Deep down, it did not surprise the angel. Crowley had always cared for children, and had, possibly, been even more invested in their young ward than Aziraphale had been. It was possible, of course, that this was because the nanny, after all, worked more closely with the child than the gardener, but still Aziraphale remembered how gentle the demon had been with the young not Anti-Christ, despite his worse nature. He had also taken to the role of nanny, and had kept the accent and the outfit sometimes even when they met up to discuss their progress as themselves. Aziraphale had thought Crowley made a rather lovely nanny, and that the gender had suited the demon quite nicely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A significant and difficult part of writing fanfiction specifically is trying to mimic the way an actor talks in writing, and it was very frustrating this chapter, not being able to put "Crowley did that thing David Tennant does with his voice, you know the one, all long emphasis and forehead wrinkles and that". I mean I could have, I guess, but it would not have been particularly good. Anyway, sorry if I disappointed more people with bad tagging last chapter but it's better now, I think. Also, is it clear my favourite Them is Pepper? I hope so. She's excellent.  
> I just realised Crowley's never a snake in this chapter, I apologise for accidentally abandoning the main point of this fic.


	8. Snakes Have No Gender, Unless They Want To, In Which Case They Have Rather A Lot Of The Stuff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The concept of this chapter is mainly that I'm really into Crowley's whole nanny look. So is Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've chosen to use female pronouns for Crowley while the demon presents female. Just putting it out there in case you disagree enough to not want to read. There is also, well, not a sex scene, but the aftermath of one. Nothing graphic mentioned.

Sometimes, Crowley was female. This was not because he, sometimes she, on a rare occasion they, needed a disguise for world saving purposes, and could not fathom the concept of a male nanny, but rather because gender was a human concept that held very little meaning for sexless celestial beings who generally considered themselves above that sort of thing. Or, in this demon’s case, below it. 

Some humans, had they been informed of this, might have theorised that Crowley did not allow himself to be bound by the constraints of the gender binary because he was an evil demon, and concluded that breaking this binary was evil and demonic. This was wrong. Neither angels nor demons had any concept of gender, and a thing they all generally agreed upon was that humans were really rather silly about it. God, certainly, did not care. She had a whole universe to keep track of, and humanity’s obsession with putting each other into categories was a design flaw she had been regretting for a few millennia.

Aziraphale didn’t really have a gender either, being an angel, but mostly looked like a man. This, and he was a little sad about it, was because it was the easiest way to get other people to leave him alone and just get on with the important things in life (trying new good food, buying books, hanging out with Crowley). Crowley, on the other hand, enjoyed gender. He had rather a lot of the stuff, almost excessively so, Aziraphale sometimes thought. But the demon enjoyed the way he could use it, both to feel as much like himself as he could, and also to mess with humans and their expectations. 

Right at this very moment, Crowley’s gender was snake. Or at least, that was how Aziraphale thought of it, as he wasn’t familiar enough with any snakes that were not Crowley to be able to tell the difference. Snakes probably didn’t care much about gender binaries either, he thought. Snake Crowley (Snowley) was currently quite a large snake, roughly the thickness of Aziraphale’s upper arm, several metres long, and coiled around the angel in a very thorough embrace and/or strangulation attempt. It was quite nice.

Crowley hissed. Aziraphale nodded in agreement, and took a sip of his tea. He had a book open, which was resting on a few of Crowley’s innumerable ribs carefully. Crowley’s head was resting on his shoulder, and reading along, or at least that was what he claimed to be doing, although the angel suspected him of dozing off now and again, and not paying proper attention to Sheridan Le Fanu’s descriptions of the young, somewhat undead lady’s languor. 

This time, Crowley had only been a snake for a few hours. It was a fine, sunny day, and the demon had declared the sunny desk just by the window to be simply too tempting, and had promptly shed his humanity and curled up there. When the shop had closed, Aziraphale had pushed his favourite chair so that it, too, caught the warm rays, and Crowley had slithered over to enjoy the twin heat sources of the sun and the angel. 

The previous night, after their return from Tadfield, Crowley had showed Aziraphale their young ward’s Facebook page. Aziraphale was only vaguely familiar with the concept of social media as something humans talked about a lot these days, and while he had heard the name of the website he had imagined it to be somewhat more literal. There weren’t any books at all, which he thought was a shame. Crowley had been logged into his undercover account (Ashtoreth J Crowley, which Aziraphale only made fun of him a little bit for), and they had messaged the lad as their temporary past selves. Crowley had, for the duration, used his Scottish accent. He claimed it helped him stay in character. Aziraphale was fairly sure he just liked the sound of it, and sometimes missed his former identity, despite absolutely nothing keeping him from returning to it, should he so wish. Crowley had also, to Aziraphale’s despair, made the angel type in the gardener’s caricature of a west country accent, claiming that it was the sort of thing humans of the age they looked like did on the many faced book.

Warlock had seemed very pleased to hear from both of them, and had told them at length about his current long standing feud with another child at his school. He had asked them whether they could time their faces, which Aziraphale had not understood, but Crowley had promised the boy they would do so the Next Time. The promise of such a future occasion had warmed Aziraphale’s heart, and he had kissed Crowley’s cheek, which had caused the demon to type two messages, which red as follows.

**Ashtoreth:** .,mzdvs jgzdsk fmlbdkæzk

**Ashtoreth:** Sorry, snake on keyboard. We have to go. Stay in school, don’t do too many drugs.

This last made some sense, as Crowley had, during the boy’s upbringing, occasionally spent time as a snake pretending to be wild and befriending the boy, which had, for convenience, eventually been adopted by the gardener. From Crowley’s perspective, this had been a way to get the boy used to the creepier, _Crawleyer_ creatures a young Antichrist ought to be comfortable with, and from Aziraphale’s point of view it was an important lesson about showing love and compassion to all God’s creatures, great and small. In practise it had meant Crowley spent a lot of time laying across Aziraphale’s shoulders in the sun while the angel pretended to garden, but mostly sat and read next to rosebushes he had to ask for the demon’s help to keep alive. Despite the looming threat of the Apocalypse, they had been good times.

Crowley hissed something into Aziraphale’s ear.

“Oh, lovely idea, would you get the bottle?”

Crowley returned, suddenly and without having moved, to his human shape, causing Aziraphale to drop his book, and spill tea all over them both. The tea made sure to evaporate very quickly, being somewhat familiar with Crowley’s habits. The demon was sprawled rather uncomfortably across Aziraphale’s lap, with one arm around the angel’s neck, bent at an angle the human skeleton was not, strictly speaking, capable of achieving. 

“Sorry. Keep forgetting,” Crowley said, although he said that every time, and Aziraphale was beginning to suspect it was simply an excuse to just be on top of him, which the demon should know by now he needed no fake reason to be. 

The demon sauntered off into the back room, a hint of snakelike movement in his hips, which Aziraphale watched appreciatively. They were nice hips. Or, possibly, very wicked ones. Deceitful, even. Aziraphale had feelings about them, either way.

“Wasn’t sure which of these was your favourite,” Crowley said, brandishing two old reds with nearly identical labels, “so I got both, for safety’s sake.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, “I’m not entirely sure I remember either. Perhaps we ought to try both?”

“Splendid idea, Angel,” Crowley said with a grin, as the corks screwed themselves out and fell, improbably, into the bin on the other side of the room. 

–

“You- You know, I always thought you looked -sple- beau- Very Nice in those days.”

Crowley grinned, trying to look suave, but was a little bit off due to having consumed significant amounts of very nice wine.

“Can’t say the same of you.”

“Well. Well, I wasn’t trying to,” Aziraphale huffed.

“Y’know all kinds can be gardeners these days. Coulda been a sexy lady gardener,” Crowley informed him helpfully. 

Aziraphale frowned, then blushed, then looked like he was imagining something rather vividly. He was. It was good. Crowley looked deeply amused as he tried to hit his mouth with the glass without looking. It took a few tries. Crowley took a moment to collect all of his concentration, some of which had wandered to Aziraphale’s flushed cheeks, and the way the warm light made his hair look luminous, like a halo, and changed, just a little. His hair had the decency to put itself up into the more formal style preferred for nannying purposes. His clothes obediently stopped being a black shirt and obscenely tight jeans, and chose instead to be a dark blouse and charcoal pencil skirt. His shoes became somewhat taller, and a different shade of snake skin. Crowley’s body changed, too, just a bit. A bit more of a waist, a hint of a chest, slightly wider hips. His face never changed, because why should it? It was a good face. She reached a hand into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a lipstick, managing to apply it properly despite her hand not being particularly steady, and not having a mirror. It helped having supernatural powers sometimes.

“Oh! Oh.”

Aziraphale had been caught in whatever had been going on in his head, and had taken a few minutes to turn back to his drinking companion, and had been quite startled. Crowley, who had, for the first two minutes looked quite poised and sexy, had gotten bored waiting, and was wrestling with the cork of a new bottle, and looked up guiltily at Aziraphale’s voice.

“D’you like it?”

She had forgotten to switch to the right voice, but Aziraphale didn’t look like he necessarily minded. The angel got out of his chair, somewhat unsteadily, and sat inelegantly down next to Crowley, leaning closer as if to see her more clearly. Crowley preened.

“Can I?” Aziraphale asked, vaguely and breathlessly, a hand hovering by Crowley’s cheek.

“You may,” Crowley answered, the voice correct now, with just the slightest hint of slurring.

Young Warlock would have been scandalized at the idea of his nanny drinking, other than perhaps a prim glass of sherry which had no inebriating effects whatsoever, and was just what grown ups did. He would have been even more upset at the idea of his nanny being romantically involved with anyone, let alone the being who was, if not exactly the monstrously unsexy gardener in looks, then at least in spirit.

Aziraphale leaned in and kissed Crowley. Her lipstick didn’t smudge, not because it was particularly good quality, but because Crowley didn’t see why it should, she had just put it on a moment ago. Crowley’s hands, the nails of which were currently covered in a crimson nail polish tipped with gold snake heads, held the angel’s face close, even after they broke apart to catch their breath (although they did not, as such, need to, the intensity of never ending kisses could in fact be too much, even for such occult beings).

“This,”Aziraphale said, “is indeed quite a good look for you.”

Crowley smirked, and winked, and kissed her angel again, who, what with all that was going on and how little work his brain was currently capable of, accidentally unfurled his wings, knocking over several bottles, a pile of books and both their wineglasses. It was, now, Crowley’s turn to be distracted. She ran her fingers over the soft white feathers.

“I do love your wings,” she told the angel, who blushed prettily, and then looked rather proud.

–

They were lying on Aziraphale’s bed, and not wearing any clothes. Crowley still looked slightly more female than usual, although her lipstick was smeared across both their faces, and her hair was appropriately messy, having had an angel run his fingers through it a lot. They had experimented with sex again, although this time with the other kind of genitals, both of them. It had been, thought Crowley, very very successful. Her bifurcated tongue had come in useful. The angel had also had a go at it this time, and done quite well for his first time, Crowley thought.

Aziraphale was glowing gently. Not in the way people said humans glowed if they were pregnant or used enough expensive skin products or covered their faces in sparkly powders, but actually emitting a faint light. This was not something he did terribly often, but he could, on occasion. The holiness of his light was making Crowley feel like she was getting a sunburn, but she hadn’t mentioned it yet, as the angel seemed very happy. And who was she to ruin that with her demonicness.


	9. Snakes Do Not Use Coping Mechanisms, Who Told You That, I'm Going To-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Crowley Snakes Out in the sun, and is confronted about himself in 2 different but equally frustrating ways.

They had spread out their blanket in the park, a nice sunny spot next to a tree, in case the sunlight should become too much for them. There was a wicker basket, large, filled with a nice bottle of wine, and some sandwiches and biscuits, as well as two small thermoses, one with coffee and one with tea. Aziraphale had sat down as neatly and properly as he could, whilst Crowley lay sprawled, half on and half off the blanket. 

“Pass me the coffee, will you?”

The angel poured some for him into the cup lid, and passed it to the demon, who came very close to spilling all of it onto his nice, overpriced shirt. While Crowley did of course miracle his clothing into existence rather than buy it in shops most of the time, he did miracle specific and existing clothes into existence, and so was able to make said items disappear without a trace from where they were sold, and appear in his closet, or on his body if he was feeling extra lazy. It was slightly less taxing on his powers to teleport the clothes, rather than to create them from thin air, although it required slightly more research.

“Biscuit?”

“Oh, all right,” the demon said, feigning reluctance.

It wasn’t that he was watching his weight (he had never checked it, but, with the exceptions of his time as a snake, it had remained constant for over six millennia), nor that he didn’t like food, but rather that he had quite a weakness for these particular ones, which Aziraphale made himself, and he didn’t want the angel to know it. It would be far too easy to trick him into things otherwise, and he couldn’t have that. Wiles and tempting were his job. Unbeknownst to Crowley, Aziraphale knew exactly how much he loved the biscuits, which was why he kept making them.

Crowley’s phone was lying between them, softly playing Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy. Aziraphale had threatened to bring his portable gramophone, which was portable only in the most technical definition of the word, as it weighed far too much for anyone to reasonably walk through London with it, but Crowley had, with great effort, persuaded him that his smart phone would do.

Aziraphale’s coat lay folded under Crowley’s head as a makeshift pillow, and the angel had rolled up his shirt sleeves, and the sight of the angel’s bare under arms was strangely fascinating to Crowley. He had seen the angel naked, of course, but there was something about how casual he looked. The very slight change in the outfit the angel had kept, essentially unchanged, for over a century. He pushed himself up onto his elbows, leaned over, and kissed the angel’s arm.

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, “what was that for?”

Crowley, having no real response to this, pushed himself up further, and kissed the angel’s mouth, tangling his free hand in Aziraphale’s luminous curls. As a distraction it worked rather well, he thought, as he felt the angel’s warm hands on his neck, the side of his face, in his hair (currently short again).

“’S just good, being here, with you,” Crowley said, speaking slightly too fast in case anyone were to overhear him say something so sappy. 

Aziraphale beamed, and Crowley thought he rivalled the sun in brightness. 

\--

Crowley’s scales shone in the afternoon sun. He was laying coiled on the blanket, his head resting on Aziraphale’s chest, as the angel gently stroked him. Aziraphale was humming along with Freddie, who was currently promising that he would take them to the seven seas of Rhye, but the angel was quite happy where he was, thank you very much. It was nice here. They had finished both the tea and coffee and the wine, and Crowley had eaten, at one point, four biscuits at once, seeming to unhinge his jaws despite his human form. Even the angel had thought it looked a little unsettling, and he was used to it.

Crowley hissed.

“Oh, and you too,” the angel replied, bending his neck uncomfortably so he could press a soft kiss to the snake’s cheek. 

Was it still called a cheek on a snake? For someone who was obsessed with gathering sources of knowledge, and also, he now admitted, the original serpent, the angel did not know an awful lot about snakes. Perhaps he ought to order some books. Yes, that was the way to go about it. Surely there were some nice old biological texts, the one’s with the lovely style of zoological illustrations popular in the late eighteen eight-

“Excuse me!”

The voice was loud, and shrill, and sounded quite accusatory. 

“Yes?” Aziraphale asked, rising to his elbows, and taking off the sunglasses Crowley had lent him before he lost interest in maintaining humanity.

A woman was standing over him, and pointing at Crowley. Next to her was a man, and two children who were covered in both mud and ice cream, and giggled and pointed at the demon, seeming rather excited.

“You can’t bring that- that thing here, there are children!”

“I’m calling animal control,” the man said, although his phone seemed to be in his pocket.

Crowley looked at Aziraphale, then at the humans, and then back to Aziraphale.

“I’m sorry if you feel threatened,” Aziraphale said, smiling a slightly nicer version of his usual customer service smile, “but she’s just sleeping. No danger to anyone, I promise. Sweet as can be! Perhaps you young ones would like to pet her?”

At this, the two adults, the parents or guardians, Aziraphale assumed, looked scandalized, and the children looked very excited.

“Can we?”

“Is it really slimy?”

“Mum, please?”

“What’s it’s name?”

Aziraphale thought for a moment, as Crowley gave him a venomous glare.

“Slimy?” he hissed.

“Crawley. Her name is Crawley.”

Crowley hissed his opinions on how Aziraphale was handling the situation. They were not entirely positive opinions.

“Hush, sweetheart,” Aziraphale said in the voice of an indulgent pet owner.

“That’s a dumb name for a snake,” the taller of the two children informed him.

“Mum? Muuum? Mum can I pet it please?”

“Absolutely not,” the woman said, attempting to shoo the children away, which, if anything, made them more determined to stay. 

“It’s perfectly legal to bring her here,” Aziraphale informed the adults.

“Sign says no dogs on the grass,” the man said.

“Well, there you have it. She’s hardly a dog, is she?”

Crowley lifted his head and hissed at the man, showing more fangs than was strictly necessary.

“Cool!” the shorter of the children exclaimed, digging in the pockets of their skirt and pulling out a mobile, as if getting ready to take a picture. 

The man had also gotten his phone out, and seemed to be making good on his earlier threat, when they all stopped in their tracks for a moment, and then collectively wandered back to where they had come from. A human shaped demon lay on top of Aziraphale.

“There was no need for that, I was handling it!” Aziraphale said, after wincing as Crowley elbowed him in the stomach trying to move down to the blanket without actually using his legs at all.

“You weren’t. It was gonna take ages, Angel.”

Crowley picked his glasses up and put them back on.

“Besides, no one saw, I made sure. ‘S fine.”

The angel huffed, and tried to project more indignation than he felt, but the demon seemed to see right through him, shuffling up the blanket until he could kiss the angel’s forehead, which took the remaining wind out of Aziraphale’s sail of annoyance.

“You are entirely impossible,” he informed the demon.

“Ah, you love it.”

A pause. A smile.

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

Another, shorter pause. A kiss. Another stranger putting a hand in front of their child’s eyes, steering them away from what seemed to be a couple of middle aged men making out on their picnic blanket. Crowley, sensing this, made a rather rude hand gesture in their direction, mouth never leaving Aziraphale’s.

–

There was a single plant in Aziraphale’s flat, with the exception currently of Crowley’s Crowl Space, which held about 43. It had been a gift from Crowley, back when they had begun their work to sabotage the Great Plan, as Crowley felt a gardener should, after all, manage to take care of a single cactus, even if nothing he knew about Aziraphale supported this. The angel had a tendency to get caught up in books, sometimes for days on end, and historically watering schedules had not been his friend. He kept refusing a smart phone, and so he couldn’t even use one of those apps for humans to make sure you treated your plants right, which, of course, Crowley thought was for weaklings and cowards who couldn’t be trusted with plants, but, frankly, Aziraphale did sometimes fall into that category, at least where proper plant care was concerned. Ineffably, the cactus still thrived. It had once sprouted a single, vast pink flower because Aziraphale smiled at it. Crowley did not approve, but, somehow, he understood.

Crowley was prowling through his room, misting his plants and informing them in great and graphic detail what their fates would be should they choose not to be at their best. His glasses were off to allow for a more menacing glare, and he had put a skull sticker on the mister, just to add to the intimidation. Aziraphale had pointed out that that plants could not actually see, but Crowley had assured him they would feel it. He had to be extra strict with them, these days, as he suspected Aziraphale of sneaking in and giving them compliments and sweet smiles and the nice expensive fertilizer whenever Crowley was out.

The demon was in the middle of recounting to the green ones how he had earned a commendation for inventive torture during the middle ages when there was a knock on his door.

“Hang on,” he told them, giving a them a final spray of water as Aziraphale let himself in.

“Here you go, dear,” the angel said, handing him a cup of coffee from a different café than usual.

“Thanks?”

Aziraphale smiled at him, all scrunched up cheeks and teeth, and sat down on his sofa, sipping what smelled like cocoa from his favourite winged mug. It had been a joke present from Crowley about a decade ago, but the angel adored it unironically, which frustrated and charmed Crowley in equal measure. The demon gave his plants a last warning glare before sitting down next to the angel, one leg across both of his, leaning on the arm rest, and only by very firmly believing that his coffee didn’t spill did he keep it inside the paper cup.

“I… I wanted to ask you something,” Aziraphale began, taking another sip of cocoa and resting his hand on Crowley’s knee.

“Okay?”

“I just… Why are you, like, you know, _this_?”

He gestured vaguely around the room with his mug. Crowley frowned.

“Going to need you to be more specific, Angel.”

He tasted his coffee. It was quite extraordinarily good. The angel opened his mouth to speak, seemed to think better of it, drank some more cocoa, and looked at Crowley with a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Why do you talk to your plants like that?”

“To make them grow better. Read about it a while ago, works wonders.”

Aziraphale smiled uncomfortably. 

“Yes, dear, but I don’t think you’re supposed to be, well, quite so aggressive about it.”

Crowley frowned.

“Demon, remember. Still. And how else would I make sure they listen?”

“It’s just,” the angel said, speaking very calmly, like someone who thinks it’s the inflection rather than the subject that will offend their listener, “that it seems a little bit unhealthy.”

“Unhealthy?”

Crowley snorted, then made a grand sweeping gesture at the objectively thriving, if terrified plants.

“They’re doing good, great. Aren’t you? _Aren’t you?_ ”

Aziraphale looked pained.

“Yes, er, they look lovely. Well done, you little flowery ones, you are all doing great.”

Crowley grimaced.

“But I just think, you see, that you might, in fact, perhaps be projecting a little on them?”

“I don’t even own a projector,” Crowley told him, not defensively at all.

“You know-”

“Shut up. I know. And I’m not. Nothing emotional or psychological to see here, angel, just a level of gardening you never could hope to attain.”

“It’s just that it seems rather as if you were using the plants to punish yourself,” Aziraphale said, quiet now, looking at Crowley with soft, sad eyes, giving his knee a squeeze.

“That’s stupid,” Crowley said, and wished he was wearing his sunglasses.

“I want you to know, whatever you are doing, that you don’t need to.”

The angel’s voice was warm and calm and made Crowley’s heart feel like a clenched fist.

“’M not.”

Aziraphale just smiled, and set his cup down on the coffee table, making a come here motion. Crowley drained his cup, tossing it carelessly onto the table where it landed perfectly even, not daring to spill a remaining drop. He shuffled around till the angel’s arms were around him, and his face was buried in Aziraphale’s shirt, and his stupid face couldn’t give anything away.

“Ow ew,” he muttered into Aziraphale’s chest.

“Yes, I rather think you do,” Aziraphale agreed, and though Crowley couldn’t see his smile, he could feel it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta write faster to get that validation hit of dopamine gonna try and write faster


	10. The Hierarchies of Angels May Be Forbidden, But The Hierarchy Of Snakes Is Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts About Before

“Do you remember?”

Aziraphale’s voice was startlingly loud. They were in a small section of woods somewhere south of London, and, with the exception of the song of one or two late night birds and the sound the wind made, ruffling feathers, it was completely silent.

“Remember what, Angel?”

They were stretching their wings. It wouldn’t do, being caught on any kind of camera with wings these days. In older times, you could let go once in a while, show off your feathers and inspire fear and reverence, or perhaps terror and further misdeeds, but these days? People wouldn’t just write it off as a miracle and declare the poor sod a saint. They’d film, and put it on the internet, and it would be declared a very clever hoax, eventually, but it was too much work, keeping it quiet, planting all those doubts, and so most celestial and occult beings kept their less human traits secret, these days. Crowley had, at one point, set up a business selling speciality costume contact lenses, just so if some human happened to see his eyes he could just hand them his business card and maybe make some money off the misunderstanding. He had gone out of business very quickly because he hadn’t considered things like eye health and safety, or how human eyes actually worked, never having had any.

And so Aziraphale had suggested flying. Or just getting out of the city somewhere, moving muscles that spent most of their time on another plane of existence. Getting some wind between their feathers without, as it were, ruffling any feathers, as Aziraphale had put it in the car, followed by a solid minute of groaning from Crowley.

“What it was like before you fell?”

They were sitting on the damp grass (on two spots miraculously significantly drier than the surrounding area), their wings spread out behind them. The angel’s were bright white, luminous in the moonlight, like his hair. Properly angelic. Crowley’s wings were sleeker, and black, their hint of iridescence hidden now, in the dark. His hair, longer again now, was falling down his back and tickling his feathers, black against black in the night.

“I do.”

Crowley, who had for the occasion left his sunglasses in the Bentley (parked a few hundred metres away, playing Now I’m Here to itself, feeling a little left out), was determinedly not looking at Aziraphale. His hands, resting on his knees, clawing at each other distractedly, his hair conveniently falling forward into his face. His eyes were all yellow, all mournful.

“Do you… Do you remember me?”

Crowley turned, then, looking into soft eyes, somehow reflecting moonlight, somehow reflecting most of the stars in the sky.

“Yeah. Remember you, all big and heroic with your flaming sword. Well, remember all of you, really. And I should… Well, I should say I always rather fancied you, shouldn’t I?”

Aziraphale made a sort of faux modest shrugging motion that indicated that the angel would not mind, exactly, should this be the case. A hint of a smile tugged at the demon’s lips.

“Sorry, Angel. Just kind of thought you were all overly obedient wankers. Not, you understand, in a bad way,” he hastens to add, seeing Aziraphale’s crestfallen face, “but I was always too curious for my own good. Least so I’ve been told. Repeatedly. By you. And others.”

He sighed, and heard wet rustling as Aziraphale moved closer, a white wing settling over his. A hand on the ground, ready for his hand to be on top of it, should that be on the table. Or at least on the grass.

“Too many of us for me to know you all. Specially you important lot.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, a strangled sound to his voice.

“What about you, then? Do you remember me from back then?”

Aziraphale blushes, then looks away.

“Didn’t think so, nah. Just some lowly angel asking too many questions, getting sent off to do stars somewhere where everyone else can’t hear me.”

Crowley attempted to keep bitterness out of his voice, but wasn’t sure he succeeded.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said again.

“’S fine,” Crowley said, although he didn’t mean it as much as he wanted to, “point is we met, right? Point is- Point is your first act on Earth was messing up by being too kind. No one was too kind in Heaven. Not _rebelliously_ kind.”

“Rebellious? I was never rebellious,” Aziraphale insisted, although they were both, of course, aware that this was far from the truth.

“And in Hell no one was kind, just rebellious,” he added, wincing at the memory.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, a third time, with feeling, and the hand found its way onto Crowley’s thigh.

“Doesn’t matter, Angel. Was a long time ago. Don’t care about that any more.”

This last, of course, was a blatant lie, and they both knew it. Crowley, as a rule, cared a lot about everything, up to, and including, giving the appearance of not caring about anything.

“I was just thinking, you see,” the angel said, taking his hand back, twisting his ring around and around finger to give himself something else to look at, “about what you were like as an angel.”

“Not much different, tell you the truth,” Crowley said, “only lighter wash robes and wings. Was only marginally less hot, you know, and that was the holiness. Don’t have the face for a halo, really.”

“I’m sure you looked heavenly,” Aziraphale told him.

“Angel,” Crowley said, in a voice intended to communicate both his deep displeasure at the joke, and also his not quite verbalised sadness that the angel would like him better as an angel.

Crowley shook off his angel’s wings, getting to his feet and stretching out his own, black feathers framing him against the night sky. He knew, really, in his heart of hearts, that that was not what the angel had meant. He knew, too, that that wasn’t how the angel thought. But millennia of emotional patterns were hard to change, and Hell always made sure you didn’t feel too secure in anything. 

“Crowley?”

Crowley flapped his wings, and started to rise up into the air, not so much due to the actual flapping his wings were doing, as because he believed having wings would let him fly, gravity and such nonsense be damned. He rose up, until he was hovering above the treetops, the wind tangling his hair. Above him the stars he had helped create twinkled, dulled a little by distance and light clouds. There was a sound from below, a soft whoosh that dissolved into something like the flapping of wings, an exclamation which was slightly ruder than the angel was, and then a steadier flapping noise growing closer.

“Haven’t really used the things in decades,” Aziraphale said, but didn’t look at Crowley. 

They hovered in unsteady silence, for a while, only the sound of their wings to compete with the wind. 

“You kn-” Aziraphale begun, but was almost immediately interrupted by the demon telling him to shut up, although not with any real menace.

“I know,” Crowley added after a beat, “it’s just. Bit of a touchy subject. Not great at getting, you know, over things. Echgj.”

This last noise was accompanied by a grimace, as Crowley felt genuinely nauseous at all this emotional honesty. Aziraphale attempted to lay a soothing hand on his shoulder, but what with both sets of wings flapping about, it was rather difficult, and after some half hearted attempts the angel gave up, and settled for giving Crowley a sympathetic smile. There was understanding in that smile. There was also anxiety and a little bit of discomfort in it, but those hid themselves fairly well, and, at any rate, Crowley would have been sympathetic, as he also contained significant amounts of anxiety and discomfort at any given time, and also spend considerable amounts of time and effort attempting to hide this. Usually he failed.

“Aziraphale,” he said, “what would you say to driving back to yours- to ours and getting just astoundingly drunk?”

“I think,” said Aziraphale, wings fluttering unsteadily, “that that would be a splendid choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kept accidentally writing in present tense this chapter, apologies if there are some instances of that I didn't catch. Also Might wind this fic down as I can't really think of more of it.


	11. Snakes Make Poor Spies, But Good Aesthetic Design Elements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley isn't as wily as once he was, and he also has Thoughts on Art. What a catch.

Crowley usually thought of himself as a large snake, and liked to think that the myth of the Jormungand was inspired by him. It was not, but this was not so much due to Crowley’s lack of impressive scale of scales, as because he, a cold blooded serpent of a man, did not particularly take to the frozen wasteland that is Norway. Yes, Crowley was an impressive serpent, by all accounts, but right at this moment, he was an extremely small snake. He was only about 40 centimetres long, and very thin, and tucked into the warmth and comfort of Aziraphale’s jacket pocket. The breast pocket, of course, so the view was better. He could just about fit his head through the button hole to peer out.

Aziraphale was meeting with another Purveyor of Fine Literature, about something or rather to do with books. The shop was closed, according to the sign, _for personal reasons_ , and the listed time for when it would resume regular business hours was deliberately written so messily as to be entirely illegible. The meeting was at a cafe, which had made Crowley suspicious. Not, of course, because he was jealous. He couldn’t imagine that someone selling old books of all things would be remotely attractive, with the exception, of course, of a certain blond and celestial bookseller, but he thought the stranger might make an attempt, anyway. You never knew. So for safety’s sake he had decided to come along to, as it were, chaperone. He also didn’t feel up to watching the shop. Hadn’t the energy to deal with customers, even with Aziraphale’s definition of customer service.

The angel’s pocket was warm, and smelled of angel, and books, and tea. Crowley was quite comfortable in there, keeping himself hidden, and, frankly, forgetting to listen to the conversation happening around him, in favour of focusing on the angel’s heartbeat. The heartbeat was, of course, only for show, and he wasn’t quite sure why Aziraphale bothered, but it felt nice. Coupled with the soft, ambient noise of the cafe, and the occasional rumbling vibration when the angel spoke, Crowley’s spy mission did not as planned, because he curled up and fell asleep.

Aziraphale was, of course aware of Crowley’s plot. One did not spend six thousand years together without getting used to one another’s habits and plots, and he could also feel the little snake wriggling about in his pockets, just above his heart. It didn’t bother him, and, in fact, he had felt it was quite sweet of the demon to worry so, even if he refused to just _talk_ about it.

After the other bookseller left, and Aziraphale had written down some names of people who might have the kinds of editions he was after for his collection, he remained at the cafe, and ordered a double espresso and some sort of dark chocolatey treat promising to containing chilli. He then poked his pocket, which had been motionless for some time. After a moment, an incredibly small snake head poked out, not, exactly, blinking in sleepy confusion, what with not having traditional eyelids, but certainly giving the impression that that was what the snake would do, were it an anatomical possibility. 

“I thought you might like a treat,” Aziraphale whispered, holding a hand to his ear as if if talking on one of these new portable telephones everyone seemed to have these days.

The snake looked at the angel, then at the coffee, then at the other people in the cafe, and then back to him.

“Oh, all right,” Aziraphale said, and picked Crowley out of his pocket, walked over to the wash rooms, and let the snake down so Crowley could become more human sized and shaped out of view.

Crowley walked back out a minute after Aziraphale, and joined him at the table, the only attention he provoked being that of the barista, who frowned, looked back and forth between the entrance and the toilets, and made the sort of face that suggested his conclusion wasn’t particularly pleasant.

Crowley lowered his glasses to look at Aziraphale suspiciously. He took a small forkful of the chocolatey dessert, looked thoughtfully at the coffee, and licked the crumbly bits off the fork with a tongue that was still too long and too forked, in a manner that made Aziraphale blush. Crowley smirked.

“’S pretty good,” Crowley told the angel through a more messy and less sultry second mouthful. 

Aziraphale beamed.

“I thought you might like it. It’s a new addition to their menu, and I thought, that seems a treat for Crowley. Bit too spicy for my preference, but then I wouldn’t trade their pain au chocolates for anything. Quite astoundingly fluffy and buttery, and for once someone who uses proper chocolate in them, and not-”

The angel continued his praise of the place’s perfect pastries for as long as it took Crowley to finish the dessert, which, in all honesty, wasn’t all that long. It was, indeed, very good. Crowley sipped his espresso, which was slightly disappointing, but drinkable. He glared at it until it, sensing what was good for it, became excellent, and slightly hotter.

“Did you spy anything exciting, then?” Aziraphale asked pleasantly.

Crowley sputtered, but then considered, and sort of shrugged at himself, as if admitting this particular plan was not one of his better or more subtle ones. Aziraphale smiled the indulgent smile of someone who had gotten quite used to this. 

“Was pretty boring,” he admitted, downing his coffee and grimacing. 

“You know,” Aziraphale said, “I appreciate you, err, looking after me, but there’s no need. I’m quite capable of going to meetings alone. Even,” he added, “in _cafes_.”

Crowley made a face at him.

“At any rate,” Aziraphale continued, even more brightly as if to spite the demon, “I thought we might go by a gallery or two, catch some exhibitions I’ve been meaning to have a look at. Unless, of course, you have other plans?”

Crowley blinked. Or at least, Aziraphale thought he did. The cafe wasn’t brightly enough lit to see more than darker shadows behind those glasses.

“Sure,” the demon said, followed by some noises the angel wasn’t quite able to decipher.

As they left, Aziraphale left a considerable tip, and Crowley changed the coins into euros.

–

“That s’posed to be Michael, is it? Doesn’t really look like her, to be honest. Looks way too nice, for a start.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re supposed to appear to the humans so much these days. Not as ourselves, anyway.”

One of the exhibitions was some sort of modern commentary on renaissance era religious art, and this part, in particular, were overly modernised portraits of significant angels, done in some sort of collage-y mixed media technique. They were also, of course, wildly inaccurate. While some of the paintings did portray some of the angels as having traditionally female bodies, Michael was not one of them. The hair and clothing were also wrong, and far too modern and colourful. But that was humans for you. Ever optimistic. 

“You know, I once modelled for old mister Michelangelo,” Aziraphale told Crowley, who groaned.

“Yes, you’ve only mentioned it about once every decade.”

The demon was not jealous. The demon had not, during the early sixteenth century, thought at length about the blasted Italian who got to use Aziraphale as a nude model for some studies, because he had asked nicely, and the angel was very easily charmed. He certainly had not continued to think about this well into the eighteenth century. He had also never showed up to the painter’s studio to give him some stern talking to about inventing muscles where there was perfectly nice and lovely softness, just because the painter had a raging hard on for the renaissance version of body builders with surprisingly tiny dicks.

“Still didn’t manage to get your likeness,” the demon muttered, quietly enough that the angel almost didn’t hear it.

He followed the angel through the small gallery, aggressively slouching the whole time. It wasn’t that he didn’t like art. Hell, after all, got most of the artists, and this was because the artists were in general pretty fun at parties, until they got just a tad too drunk and sad. No, it was just an issue he had with depictions of angels in general. Specifically depictions of the fallen ones. Now angels, proper angels, all got to look all nice and lovely in flowing white robes. Which, to be fair, was how Aziraphale had looked when Crowley first properly met him. Admittedly the overly muscular infants weren’t the most flattering depictions of angels, but Crowley had always assumed it was somehow meant to be a good thing. Even Lucifer himself was usually depicted as beautiful. A tragic hero, frequently painted and sculpted by artists who were clearly horny for the devil, pun intended. But demons? Straight up demons? Mostly didn’t even get to look like people. Just misshapen monsters whose only emotion was wrath. Which seemed unfair. Sure, wrath was a big part of demonhood, but it wasn’t everything. It wasn’t like they weren’t people. Sort of. At least as much as the angels were, if you ignored the creatures seeming to sprout from some of their heads. 

“Are you all right, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, after waving a hand in front of Crowley’s face.

Crowley had been distractedly staring at a blank piece of wall, as if he were at some very clever modern art exhibition where the point was that no one could know what was art and what was gallery space. Crowley blinked, removed his glasses to rub his eyes, put them back on, and blinked again.

“Tickety-boo,” he said darkly, and frowned at sort of modern take on pointillism that didn’t even reference pixel art in a meaningful way, and which the title proclaimed to be Raphael, despite the fact that it looked more like a sort of abstracted landscape.

“We could go back to the sho- back home, if you’d like?”

The angel sounded so kind, and it made Crowley feel bad in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It had elements of guilt, and petulance, and anger, and a rage at unfairness, but an unspecified one. 

“Follow me,” he growled, and pulled Aziraphale into a small side room, all walls, floor and ceiling of which was a mural of a single face with too many eyes.

He glared at the art, stuck his head out to make sure no one was watching, and shook off hair, skin, limbs and all other human nonsense. The angel reached a hand down, and he slithered up it to curl around Aziraphale’s neck like a small scaly scarf. He hissed the snake equivalent of a mopey sigh. Aziraphale lifted his head enough that he could press a soft kiss to it, and then gently manoeuvred Crowley into his jacket pocket, again.

“Won’t do to cause a panic,” he whispered to the snake, and then wandered out into the main room again, accepting a second glass of off-brand champagne.

–

Crowley remained a snake for the rest of the day, varying in size depending on the way in which he was using Aziraphale as a heat source/bed. When they got back to the bookshop, which Aziraphale opened for exactly 23.5 minutes before getting bored and closing it again, just in time to disappoint a potential customer. Crowley spent this time as a metre long snake, curled loosely around the angel’s neck. When Aziraphale, after making himself some tea, sat down with a heavy 13th century manuscript, he became a larger snake, coiling around the angel, parts of him a spiral in Aziraphale’s lap, head on the angel’s shoulder, tail flicking idly by the angel’s feet. When Aziraphale, only a little bit inconvenienced his lover/snake, eventually gave up reading and went off to bed, Crowley was a massive serpent, fully taking up his half of the bed, and also two thirds of Aziraphale’s, mostly on top of the angel. Eventually, though, Crowley shrank in his sleep, and Aziraphale, after nodding off briefly, woke to find limbs curled around him, and a mostly human face buried in his neck, long and wild dark red hair covering them both. The scene looked remarkably like Munch’s Vampire, if the artist had been less of a coward and more gay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk idk this is just a machine for thoughts and head cannons but not all the ones I really want to write, because i am a coward. Not in the sense of not admitting to them, but in the sense they involve hard to write things? I've had a lot of wine tonight.


	12. Snakes May Be Cold Blooded, But They Can Channel Their Fury With Immense Precision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return of Warlock, boy wonder, Evil Bidding On The Internet, Rebelliously Good Angels.

“What the _Heaven_ , Angel?” Crowley said, incredulous and forgetting to use the right voice.

“Oh, I mean-” she stumbled, but back in the proper Scottish, more elegant tones of Nanny.

“It’s all right, I figured that out ages ago,” Warlock replied through the slightly shrill speakers.

“Trans rights,” the boy added, and dabbed.

This wasn’t exactly what Crowley had been worried about, but he was glad to see the boy wasn’t too heavily influenced by his father, who had seemed rather old fashioned about that sort of thing. Aziraphale just beamed, his fake teeth even more ridiculous. The devious angel had just told the boy that the two of them had started dating, and moved in together, which, while true of their proper selves, was a disturbing idea when it pertained to their fake human identities. Specifically the idea that anyone would date the gardener, let alone the most stunning nanny to ever grace England with her presence, was deeply unlikely.

They were having the promised Next Time face time chat with their old ward. It had been about a month since the last time they checked in, and it was also the amount of time that had been needed for Crowley to successfully explain to Aziraphale what face time was, and then what Facebook was, how video chatting worked, and eventually the basic idea of the internet, although by that point he had been beginning to suspect the angel of having too much fun playing innocent.

“’M happy for you, though, always thought you might end up together,” Warlock added to what had now been a full thirty seconds of awkward silence and staticy speaker noises.

Crowley sputtered, and tried to keep her haughtiness up while also communicating how absolutely absurd the notion was. 

“Ah, thank ye, young laddie,” Aziraphale said chirpily, as Crowley glared daggers at him, “I’m a lucky fellow, me.”

“You certainly are,” Crowley said, voice icy.

The chat continued more calmly after that, and consisted primarily of Warlock telling them about cool things he had mined and crafted, something about a two week period that neither of them fully grasped, how his parents understood nothing (something for which Crowley had great sympathy, whilst Aziraphale attempted to assure the boy that they had the best of intentions and only wanted what was best for him), and finally how there was a cute girl in his class, but also a cute boy, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his feelings about that. They gave him advice, slightly more united than their old saintly cop, devilish cop routine, about all of these situations, except the bits about video games, which neither of them quite understood. While Crowley had been the one to invent micro transactions in games, he had never bothered trying to play them, and thought they sounded a bit tedious.

After they hung up, they both sort of collapsed into their respective chairs. The lives of twelve year olds were, they concluded, quite exhausting, and also incomprehensible. 

“What did you have to tell him about us for?” Crowley asked, the voice sort of wavering between English and Scottish, never quite settling.

“Guhlegh ich-” Aziraphale answered, while attempting to remove his fake teeth. 

While the angel had not gone full gardener attire, changing the hat and smock for a gigantic beige woolly jumper, he still looked off. He shook himself, and pulled the jumper over his head, and by the time he turned back to Crowley he looked properly angelic again. Crowley sighed in relief.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, and frowned.

“Well,” he said again, his voice back to normal now, “I thought the boy would be happy to know that we were both doing well. That we had found happiness. And each other.”

He smiled at Crowley, who had to clench her jaw with the effort of not smiling back. The angel had that effect.

“Yes,” agreed Crowley, “but she could do so much better. I could. Well, you know what I mean.”

“Not than _you_ , Angel, better than the gardener. Satan’s sake.” she added, seeing the angel’s expression.

“I could never,” she added, getting up from her chair, and setting herself down on the angel’s lap, and putting her arms around his neck, leaning in close, “do better than _you_.”

She punctuated her point with a kiss. The angel blushed. Crowley shifted her legs around so she was straddling him, having, given the format of their talk with their ward, not bothered with the skirt, opting instead for extremely tight fitting black jeans. It did not go terribly well with her rather old fashioned black blouse, other than making her look vaguely like she was starring in a not particularly good 1990s vampire film. She looked faintly ridiculous, but luckily Aziraphale was too out of date with fashion to notice. She pulled a bobby pin out of her hair, and it tumbled down around her face in messy red waves. This worked not because that’s how hair or pins or hair spray traditionally behaved, but rather because she had seen it look like that in films and had, so, assumed that that was how it worked.

“I’m very glad to hear that, my dear,” Aziraphale told her, one hand caressing her face, the other coming to rest around her waist.

“Still wish you would have asked me,” she whispered to him, leaning in to let a forked tongue flick over his earlobe.

While it was usually Crowley who expressed herself through a variety of inarticulate sounds and gestures, Aziraphale made a sort of high pitched noise at this. Crowley smirked. She kissed him again, more deeply, with a lot more complicated tongue action, and then got up.

“Right,” she said, “I’ve got stuff to do, and I’m sure you have some customers you need to ignore.”

Aziraphale made another, far needier noise, and looked terribly distressed and disappointed.

“Shoo,” Crowley added, unbuttoning her blouse and discarding it on the sofa, and walking over to where she had left her usual shirt hanging off the back of her chair.

“What?” she added, at Aziraphale’s continued presence and gaze.

“Oh, am I indecent, is that it? That’s pretty sexist of you, Angel,” she said, and shifted back to his usual, more male looking form.

“Better?”

“Both,” Aziraphale said, staring no less, “err, both is good.”

Crowley tried to look suave, but mostly just looked smug. Still not having put his shirt back on, he leaned down and kissed Aziraphale again.

“Mean it, though,” he said, running his hands through his hair, which somehow took it from halfway down his back to short and swoopy, “got Evil Business to get on with.”

Aziraphale looked a little disappointed, but got up, and pressed a soft kiss to Crowley’s cheek, which made him blush as if the previous few minutes hadn’t happened.

“I’ll bring you some tea,” he said, and left the room before Crowley had the chance to protest.

–

Three days later, Crowley was still in his chair. He was fomenting dissent and discord, he had told Aziraphale when he had been by to check on him the day before. He was fomenting dissent and discord on twitter, mainly, and had the website open, as well as the app. He was laying sideways in his office chair, legs hanging off one arm rest, his back resting against the other, in way that would have made even the slouchiest teenager wince in sympathetic pain for his back.

He had several proper accounts (AJC666, Angel_Lover69, g00d0ldfashi0nedl0verboii, w1ly53rp3n7, Crawly4004BC, dangernoodle666, and so on. They were all verified, or at least displayed icons that implied that they were), as well as a few thousand bot accounts ready for the really heavy hits. 

Currently he was attempting to cyberbully a priest. He had used a few of his own accounts, as well as a couple hundred fake ones, and had used tactics such as swearing, badly photoshopped images of the priest with a robe and candles, but in the satanic way rather than the traditional one, childhood photographs of the priest (he didn’t need to do anything to those, everyone’s childhood photographs were embarrassing in their own right), and fake twitter screenshots saying things like Hail Our Lord Satan, The Whole Concept Of Church Was A Mistake, and The Pope Sucks Ass. Admittedly the priest in question wasn’t Catholic, but he assumed they frowned upon insulting the pope anyway.

“Tea?”

“Wagh!”

Crowley had been so deep in his fomenting that he had not noticed Aziraphale knock, enter, turn on the light, or put a steaming mug down next to his keyboard. 

“I think perhaps you ought to take a break, my dear serpent,” Aziraphale told him, and sat down in the throne chair.

It was dreadfully uncomfortable, which was entirely on purpose. The angel had his own mug of tea, which he sipped, peering at the screen, which had been turned up to the highest brightness to combat Crowley’s sunglasses.

“’M fine,” Crowley mumbled, and yawned, jaws opening unsettlingly wide. 

“What on earth are you doing to that priest?” Aziraphale asked, adjusting the reading glasses that hadn’t been perched on the bridge of his nose a moment ago.

“Cyberbullying,” Crowley said, sniffing his tea and wrinkling his nose, “you wouldn’t like it.”

“I should say so! You don’t need to do that any more, my dear. At least, probably not. And to a priest, no less, who only tries to do good-”

“He’s homophobic. Keeps talking about it in his sermons. Doing your work for you, really,” Crowley told him, and drank some of the tea.

It wasn’t as bad as he had expected. Then again, he’d only had espresso, sometimes spiked with gin, a terrible choice, but all he had in his desk, for the last 72 hours. He could, of course, have miracled something up, but he’d been too distracted.

“Me, not the priest,” he added for clarification.

“Besides, I saw what you did to that children’s hospital last week. Or month. Recently, anyway. You’ve got no right to talk.”

The angel looked pained, and didn’t argue. A fortnight ago Crowley had gotten back to the bookshop to find Aziraphale asleep in one of the arm chairs. This was unusual, as the angel almost never slept except to keep Crowley company. He had shooed out all the remaining customers, and hung the Back In A Moment sign with bright yellow comic sans and clip art that he had some years previously convinced Aziraphale was peak graphic design, and carried the angel up to bed.

When Aziraphale had woken up, two full days later, he had admitted to walking by a hospital full of kids with cancer, and curing them all. They didn’t make sudden recoveries, that would have been too suspicious, but they all had a very good day, and began a steady but believable road to recovery. One little girl spontaneously grew ten inches of hair back in her sleep because she missed having braids. The hospital cafe also got considerably better pastries, and the hospital got an enormous donation of toys and games. It had been a good deed well done, Aziraphale had thought, but it had exhausted him thoroughly.

“I suppose,” the angel said, finishing his tea and setting the mug down on his desk, “that you have a point. And if you are as you say using your Powers of Evil to thwart evil doers, then I suppose I can condone it.”

“You’d better,” Crowley said darkly, “bastard made a queer girl kill herself last month.”

“Oh. Oh, well, then, is there any way I can help? Can I add to this "cyber bullying" as you call it?”

Crowley laughed, and leaned uncomfortably over to kiss the closest available part of Aziraphale, which happened to be the back of his hand. It was soft and warm, like the rest of the angel.

“Not quite your thing, love. Suspect some of the parishioners unfortunate enough to have listened might need some sense put back in their heads, though. And some queer kids some belief that love will overcome, or whatever it is your lot preach.”

Aziraphale smiled one of his gentle, soft and perfect smiles.

“I can do that.”

Crowley smiled one of his very fond smiles that, while he didn’t realise it, made Aziraphale’s heart stop being for show and do some fairly intense acrobatics in there.

“Now, will you “log” “off” and come to bed, darling? Or come down and have a glass of wine with me?”

“Mmmm,” the demon said, flopping down to hang from his chair like a person with a severely malfunctioning skeleton, “bed sounds good. Carry me?”

The angel rolled his eyes.

“Sleepy,” Crowley added.

“Not like that,” Aziraphale told him.

Crowley sighed and collapsed into a heap of snake, and slithered up the angel until he lay across his shoulders like a very literal boa. Crowley hissed in satisfaction.

“Lazy,” Aziraphale muttered fondly.

Crowley hissed something not quite translatable in return, and let himself be carried off into the bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The main objective of this chapter was to have an excuse to have Warlock say trans rights and dab.


	13. Snakes Are Quite Decent Liars, But, Still, Inexplicably, Real Real Bad At Hiding Their Emotions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snakes under cover, queer culture, snake cuddles

The Slumbering serpent awoke to find himself wrapped around his angel’s neck like a scarf while Aziraphale read. They were sat in one of the nice, cushy, sat-down-just-right arm chairs, which was pushed right up to the front window of the shop, through which the sunlight was streaming. Crowley appreciated the gesture. The warm light felt good against his scales. Admittedly the warm angel also felt good against some of his other scales. He yawned.

“Oh, good morning, my love,” the angel said, and lifted Crowley’s head up so he could reach the top of it with a kiss.

“Did you sleep well?”

Crowley concentrated a moment, to make sure no one was looking at the window, and turned into his more human-ish shape.

“Oof,” Aziraphale said.

“Sorry,” Crowley drawled, hooking his arms around the angel’s neck and pulling himself up into a light kiss, “ _forgot_.”

“Oh. Oh, you Wily Serpent,” Aziraphale said with whatever the exact opposite of malice is, “I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“No clue what you mean,” Crowley said, and grinned.

The demon wriggled about for a moment, attempting to find a position on the angel’s lap that better accommodated his non-snake bones, although he was, perhaps naturally, far more flexible than the average owner of a human skeleton. He gave the angel another kiss.

“Love you,” he muttered into Aziraphale’s ear, so softly and so like a hiss that the angel only barely heard it.

“And I you, my dear, demonic serpent.”

Crowley hissed happily. He blinked his eyes lazily; they were still fully snake yellow. They met the angel’s hazel ones, and remained there. Crowley’s tongue flicked out, still forked, tasting the air around them. Books, tea, and now a hint of the few plants they had acquired as a couple, which lived in the shop, were more colourful and flowery, and which he was not allowed to yell at, because Aziraphale had decided that they were their children. Crowley had argued that they had already had a child, who was off at school somewhere, and who had benefited from the occasional yelling, but Aziraphale, the liar, the slanderer, had pointed out that Crowley had always been very kind and understanding with the boy, and his argument had rather fallen apart then.

“You look lovely, my dear,” Aziraphale said, resting a hand on Crowley’s chest, where a few gleaming red scales lingered.

Crowley kissed him, again, by which he meant to say that so, very much, did Aziraphale. The angel, always radiant, always lovely, whose smile could light any place up more efficiently than the sun did the dark universe, extricated a hand to grab his tea mug, sipped from it, and smiled contentedly. This was, Crowley thought, quite a nice way to wake up.

“You know,” Aziraphale said, leaning uncomfortably over the arm of the chair to pick up his book where he had dropped it, and inserting a bookmark and placing it carefully on the side table, “there’s this new café not far away I thought we might try together. I hear their pastries are simply divine.”

“Eugh,” said Crowley, “probably mess me right up, then.”

“Metaphorically, dear.”

“Ah.”

“Would you join me? I think you might quite like it there.”

Crowley shrugged. He did not quite share the angel’s deep love of all things food, though he enjoyed it on occasion. He also occasionally enjoyed a mouse, although only when he was snake shaped, and preferably when the angel wasn’t looking. The demon did, however, greatly enjoy watching Aziraphale eat. The angel made all sorts of delightful expressions, and sometimes almost beamed with a Heavenly light. 

“Sure,” he told his angel, “why not, probably some evil to be done on the way.”

The angel frowned.

“Oh, you know, minor evil. Flat tires. Cold coffee. A sea of red lights. Accidentally getting caught in the background of someone else’s selfie in a deeply unflattering way and having to watch the picture get thousands of likes and in the end become some sort of meme. Not gonna start a third world war, am I?”

“I suppose not. Well then.”

The angel looked at Crowley expectedly, and Crowley pointedly didn’t get off his lap, but rather leaned in to kiss him again. He licked his lips.

“Your tea tastes nice,” he informed the angel.

–

They eventually got out of the shop, after some more kissing, and Crowley’s insistence on misting the plants on the shop floor one last time.

“It’s too sunny,” he’d argued, “don’t want them to think they can get away with drying out.”

Aziraphale hadn’t minded. Crowley seemed to have accepted, mostly, that he should not yell at these, although the angel had seen him whispering furtively to them out of the corner of his eye. Baby steps. Nearly fifty years of habit took a while to change; it was a notable chunk of time even for them.

“So we’re close?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.”

Crowley was leading them, despite not knowing quite where they were going, and Aziraphale was quite pleased with this, as it let him watch the demon walk. Crowley walked like someone who had only recently discovered the concept of limbs, and was having a lot of fun with it. Many humans mistook it for a somewhat intoxicated walk. Aziraphale sometimes thought it was quite a sexy walk, although that, he suspected, had more to do with it being a walk belonging to Crowley more than anything else. It wasn’t like the demon was incapable of walking like a human (after all, Nanny Ashtoreth walked quite properly,), but more that he chose not to. The demon disliked doing anything properly, and that was part of what made him him. 

“Just to the left, here,” Aziraphale told Crowley, leading him into a small side street and towards a garish neon sign that flashed all the colours of the rainbow, or, at least, all the colours of the rainbow flag.

 **H(e)aven** , the sign said. Another, smaller sign on the door said _Be Here, Be Queer or Be Square_. Crowley’s eyebrows rose from beneath his glasses, but he didn’t comment.

“Not quite your usual place, is it?” the demon muttered in his ear as they walked in, a small bell above the door announcing their presence. 

Aziraphale shot him a look, but didn’t reply, choosing instead to smile brightly at the woman behind the counter. She looked to be about a decade younger than they pretended to be, with a shaved head, a face that looked like it preferred being described as handsome rather than pretty, and a tattoo of two interlocking ♀s above her collarbone. 

“Hello,” he said, “I’ve heard wonderful things about the croissants you do here!”

Crowley made a noise that Aziraphale knew, from experience, meant he found the angel’s enthusiasm to be embarrassing, but still somewhat endearing. The lady behind the counter smiled.

“What can I get you?”

Aziraphale ordered what amounted to a tasting platter of most of the different pastries the café made, and Crowley had a quadruple espresso. Aziraphale never quite understood the appeal, nor why anyone would choose to not eat, but, he reasoned, more for him. He sometimes offered Crowley tastes, but had eventually learned that the demon refused what was offered, preferring instead to sneak bites of Aziraphale’s fork when he was distracted. Some parts of one’s nature were unavoidable, he supposed. 

The café was smallish, with only about five tables, most of them unoccupied. At one in the back, five people of varying genders but who all looked to be quite young were poring over a map with rather a lot of red circles. Aziraphale was gratified to see the youth hadn’t all switched to those silly online map things, even if they could tell you where you were. He chose to ignore the fact that he had himself throughout most of history miracled a small dot or halo to represent himself on his physical maps which filled much the same function.

“Was it up to your expectations?” the barista lady asked, coming over to the table to collect the now empty dishes.

“Oh, yes. Quite scrumptious! It reminded me, really, of some delicious ones I had in Paris, oh, some cent-”

Crowley nudged him.

“Some years ago. Feels like centuries. Must go back one of these days, mustn’t we, love?”

Crowley made a non committal noise, and, furtively, invisibly behind the ceramic of his small cup, refilled his coffee. Aziraphale would has tsked, but he didn’t want the lady to ask. She did, anyway, but not about the espresso.

“So how did you two meet? You don’t, if you don’t mind me saying, really seem, uh… likely?”

“Ah,” began Aziraphale, “yes. It’s a terribly long story. It started-”

“Work,” said Crowley.

“Oh?”

Crowley looked terribly amused, which was seldom an entirely good sign. 

“Yeah. He was, well, guess you’d call it a sort of security guard. I was breaking in. Was love at first crime.”

“Crowley!”

Aziraphale was not entirely sure where the demon was going with it, but he had to admit it was almost a fitting lie. Crowley, however, still looked terribly smug.

“I mean, err, don’t- don’t admit to crimes in public, my dear. The, ah, Man. Always listening, you know. Or the lady in the sky. Mobile phones? CCTV, perhaps...”

Crowley continued to look very pleased with himself as Aziraphale floundered.

“First thing he was tell me off, very sternly, as he’d given his torch his and tazer away to a scared homeless couple on his first day on the job. Far too nice for his own good, the idiot. Was rather a hereditary enemies to lovers thing,” Crowley added, grinning slightly too wide. 

“Yeah,” the lady said, “I can understand that. My girlfriend’s a goth, and I’m, well,” she gestured to her tank top, which proclaimed _sun’s out, guns out_ , “more of a jock, as they say.”

“Ah,” Aziraphale said, on what he felt was firmer ground now, “the goths were lovely people. Rather beautiful cathedrals, I always thought*.”

Crowley nudged him, again.

“Think she means in the modern sense, Angel.”

“Oh? Oh, oh I see, yes. Terribly confusing closets. Can’t understand how they can tell anything apart when everything in there is a black void. It’s a problem I’m all too familiar with,” he told her, glancing pointedly at Crowley.

The lady nodded in sympathy.

“And we have a white cat. Won’t believe the amount of lint rollers we goes through,” the lady said, shaking her head fondly.

“What’s with the name?” Crowley asked, tired, presumably, of this horrid ganging up on, this vile bullying of people who had Style.

“Hmm?”

“He-ah-aven,” Crowley enunciated incorrectly.

“Ah,” the lady said, “it’s sort of a compromise. I wanted to name it Haven, to sort of indicate the purpose. Safe haven for queer youth. And queer anyone,” she added, seeming to notice her customers were firmly middle aged, “and my girlfriend’s favourite song at the time was _Heaven Is A Place On Earth_ , so she wanted it to be Heaven.”

Aziraphale almost informed her that it wasn’t, actually, but thought better about it. After all, he found his Heaven, at least the metaphorical one, right here in London. Right here at this table. His Heaven nudged him with his foot under the table.

“I like it,” Crowley announced.

“Feel like, though, you set up a competitor. Hell and something. Maybe a bar rather than a café, across the street. Get the dichotomy. Double the clientele.”

“What, for straight people?”

“Nah, fuck ‘em. For angry queers.”

The lady smiled diplomatically, and Aziraphale looked pained. 

“Non-goths,” Crowley scoffed, apparently having aligned himself with the absent co-founder, “can’t recognize a good idea if it slithers up and bites your ankle.”

–

When they got home again, after Aziraphale had, quite generously, tipped about 200%, and promptly been given a paper bag filled to the bursting with more excellent croissants, and Crowley, feeling that he must do some evil, had made the neon sign flicker ominously (quite an achievement in the bright afternoon sun), they made their way back to the chair they had left that morning. Crowley, again, draped himself across the angel, though he retained his largely human form, opening his shirt to get the last of the sun on the scattered scales there. Sun just felt better on scales than skin, he thought. Scales did not get sunburnt. 

Despite the relative heat, Aziraphale had decided a hot cocoa would go nicely with his extra croissant bounty. He dipped them into it, which repulsed Crowley.

“They get _soggy_ , angel. You’re ruining them!”

This did not keep him from stealing a soggy, ruined piece of cocoa tinted croissant from his angel, but he did not acknowledge that it was quite tasty.

“Nonsense, my dear. Anyway, you said you didn’t want any.”

“Don’t want you desecrating that poor baker’s work, is all.”

“How caring of you,” Aziraphale told him, beaming.

“Greugchhh,” Crowley said crossly, grimacing hard enough that his glasses fell off.

There was no winning with the angel. But that, Crowley thought, was all right. They'd already won together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm here, I'm queer, I'm inserting my ocs everywhere.  
> (Also, sorry late chapter, went back to oslo to party, work and play video games, in roughly that order. No time to write.)
> 
> *I know the goths had nothing to do with gothic architecture, it's a joke.


	14. Snakes And Angels Are Both Beautiful, Works Of Art In Themselves, But Are Still Glad Whenever This Is Noticed And Documented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley look at art part 2 because i can do what i like

"Again, Angel, really? We went a week ago."

Crowley had let his glasses slide far enough down his nose that he could look incredulously at the angel over them.

"What? Oh, come now, dear, that was a completely different type of art. You've spent so much time around artists through the times, one would think you could appreciate their work more."

Crowley made a face.

"Mostly," he said, "it was because they were great fun at parties."

Aziraphale knew this to be an exaggeration at best. He had caught Crowley only two days ago with one of his massive art books, looking at the paintings, eyes wet. But he wasn't going to bring that up.

"I understand that, my love, but please, for me? I really do think you will like this one."

Crowley sighed, dramatically, and let his newspaper flutter to the floor.

"Fine. Fine. If it makes you happy, Angel, I'll do anything."

"Oh, oh thank you, dear," Aziraphale said, and smiled at him.

Crowley made one of his vague noises. Aziraphale walked over to him, tipped his chin up with a finger, and kissed him. What had been intended as rather a chaste and quick kiss deepened, Crowley's hand finding its way into Aziraphale's fluffy curls, tugging him closer, long serpentine tongue licking at Aziraphale's lips till he opened them. 

"Ng. Taste good," Crowley announced.

"Thank you, I think?"

Crowley rose, like a snake preparing to strike, but the striking was more like collapsing into the angel's arms in a sort of violent yet entirely passive hug. Aziraphale frowned, but held him.¨

"Is anything the matter, my love?"

"Lazy," the demon announced.

"Yes, I know, I've met you."

"Mean."

"Learning from the best, I'm sure," Aziraphale told him, and kissed the top of the demon's head.

"Ready to go, then?" he added, holding the demon out at arms length, where Crowley proceeded to slump to the floor, letting go of all traces of his human shape, collapsing into a curlicue of snake.

Aziraphale smiled a tight smile.

"I suppose it's the bus and not the Bentley, then?"

_Hssss_

"Yes, all right, but you're going back to human when we get to the museum."

_Hss. SSsss._

"No, I'm not getting thrown out for bringing a dangerous animal in, I have a membership."

Crowley hissed again, wordlessly now, but slithered up the arm Aziraphale offered him, curling himself around Aziraphale's neck. He untied his bow tie and loosened a button of his shirt so Crowley could lay right against his skin, though the lack of the tie really made him feel almost naked. But Crowley, tiny snake as he was, would be warm and comfortable, and, though this was of course less important, less visible. Admittedly snake skin seemed to be coming back into style, but humans would still probably notice a live snake out in public and get upset. Humans were so easily upset by things like that.

Crowley's tiny head rested in the hollow of his throat for the whole journey, a warm and occasionally moving band around his neck, bordering, almost, on discomfort when Crowley, forgetting himself, curled tighter. 

\--

He absolutely refused to turn back into a human before they had gotten into the museum proper, because he claimed paying for tickets went against his demonic duties. Aziraphale, however, had miracled a few pounds into the accounts of the museum, and very discreetly attached the little colourful sticker to the back of Crowley's jacket as they walked, waiting till he was in the middle of a rant about creepy cherubim depictions.

Aziraphale lead him through the exhibit, not going too fast, stopping to listen to every description on the audio guide he'd gotten, much to Crowley's exasperation.

"You know this!" the demon exclaimed, loud enough to earn them a room full of glares, so he lowered his voice to a loud whisper, pulling Aziraphale's headphones half off, "you literally knew the artist. These aren't even correct."

"It's part of the experience, my dear," Aziraphale said, only a little defensively.

He happened to enjoy listening to the context and histories of the artworks, because, frankly, he had forgotten a lot of what he'd known, and it was nice to be reminded, even if it wasn't all entirely right, and some of the speculation downright offensive. Crowley groaned, loudly, earning more glares, and slumped down on the bench to wait, stealing the last space to sit just as an old lady was about to sit down. He glared defiantly at the angel, daring him to comment. Aziraphale didn't, but he did give him a long and hopefully guilt inducing Disappointed Stare. It did not appear to work.

\--

"Look," Aziraphale said, hardly able to keep still, to keep the smile from scrunching his cheeks up.

"What?" Crowley demanded, glaring daggers at a man who bumped into him.

Aziraphale pointed, through the crowd, at a painting, all in soft blues and pinks, a portrait of an angel. 

"Hey, is that...?"

Crowley elbowed through the crowd to get closer, Aziraphale following in his wake, apologising for him, though he quietly appreciated it. There were so many people here you almost couldn't see the pictures, which rather ruined the point.

"Angel," Crowley said, "is that-"

"Yes," Aziraphale admitted, ducking his head to hide a hint of a blush.

It was a large painting, nearly two metres tall, a full body rendering of a very nearly naked angel, hair like soft clouds in sunshine, a strip of fabric wrapped round the waist for modesty, and to show off the painters skill, Aziraphale supposed, at rendering satin accurately, though as a piece of clothing it made little sense.

"You modelled for this?"

The angel nodded.

"They got the wings wrong," Crowley said, dismissively, though in the bright lights Aziraphale could just about glimpse his eyes through his glasses, and see the way he was staring.

"Well, yes, couldn't pose for that bit, could I? I tried to tell the gentleman, no, you know, wings wouldn't sprout out of your shoulders, that makes no anatomical sense, but he wouldn't listen. Dreadful chap to pose for, really. Wouldn't talk at all, claimed it ruined his concentration, and got very angry when I tried to keep a conversation going on my own. No fun."

Crowley made a sympathetic noise, and he held his phone up, taking a photo of the painting, completely ignoring the museum staff gesturing angrily at him from the other side of the room.

"Crowley dear," Aziraphale said admonishingly, "if you need photos like these we can take some at home, rather than ruin this artwork."

Crowley made a noise a bit like when a pile of books stacked too high toppled and fell to the floor.

"Ye- yup. Good idea, Angel, we can do that."

"But just so you know, I had a look, and they do sell prints of this in the shop."

Crowley's face was a beautiful disaster, and it took Aziraphale about half an hour to gently prod him out of the room, so they could see the rest of the exhibition.

\--

"Oh, Crowley, look dear. That's you, isn't it?"

"Hmm?"

Aziraphale pointed to the painting, or, rather, to a small detail of it. It showed the body of a woman, reclined on a bed, her hand bent like it was broken, her skin a deathly pallor, though the pose made it look almost as if she were resting. Behind her, two female servants had burst in, tears in their eyes, upon finding their queen dead. Just below the body of Cleopatra, however, rested a very small snake, which was the detail to which the angel was pointing.

"Just there. Well, I don't know if it looks like you, but that was you, yes?"

"Oh," Crowley said.

"Yes," he added, sounding oddly emotional.

"It is, in fact, me. Modelled for this painting. Well, not technically, not so the artist knew, I suppose, but as she was painting I... I found that old form, that specific snake shape, slithered up the still life she'd set up of the bed, to paint in the details of the fabric, I suppose. So she'd get it right. She didn't know, of course, but I thought it important."

"Oh," Aziraphale breathed, not sure what to say, opting instead to take Crowley's hand in his, squeezing.

"I'd met her, see, Artemisia, years earlier, back when, well. Back when thing's weren't going so well for her. Offered to help her. Or, well, not help, so much as wreak havoc on her enemies. Can't help, people, really. Should've asked you, of course, but I hadn't seen you for a decade and a half, didn't know where you were. Not in Rome, probably."

"No," Aziraphale agreed.

"So I thought, heard she was painting this, thought she might as well get to be the only historical painter to get that bit exactly right."

Crowley's voice was painfully neutral, which was never good, so Aziraphale squeezed his hand again, and leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"And you look wonderful in it, dear. I'm sure she would have appreciated it."

\--

In the museum café, after Crowley had bought everything they sold with the painting of Aziraphale, and the angel had bought a post card of the painting Crowley was in, they had cake. Well, Aziraphale had cake, and Crowley ordered a piece, took a single bite, declared it too sweet, and nudged it over to Aziraphale's side of the table. The angel smiled his thanks, and the corner of Crowley's mouth turned up, just a little, just enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been almost a full month since I updated, which I apologize for, though it's not for my lack of writing. I've written like 25k of another Good Omens fic, but, given that it in addition to Crowley/Aziraphale features Crowley/Lucian (from Underworld, Michael Sheen as Hot Werewolf), it's significantly less popular than this one. Which, fine, it's technically crack, I suppose all crossovers are. But go check it out if you like my writing? Or hot werewolves. The last chapter currently is a Crowley/Aziraphale smut chapter, which I gather are some peoples' thing.


	15. Snake Scarf 2:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel bad for inability to write more content, have some art instead. Less fun, but by god, so much easier and faster.


	16. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of mostly pretty abandoned by now, ficwise, until such a time as I might be inspired to do more, but I have two other Good Omens fics I'm writing more actively still; one an Underworld crossover, and one a post nopocalypse thing where Aziraphale falls but as unangsty and fun as I can go with that. Anyway. Here's some drawings of these two.Know it's not what you subscribed for but hey.


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